


KAIMONI (demon)

by Swifters



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: AU, Danny-whump, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Sci-fi/fantasy/horror, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-02
Updated: 2016-01-02
Packaged: 2018-05-11 05:29:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 21
Words: 53,779
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5615656
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Swifters/pseuds/Swifters
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A stolen ancient artefact, a missing girl and a parapsychologist with some unlikely theories about time travel…Danny and Grace's holiday does not go to plan. Danny whump, Steve angst. Bromance. AU/sci-fi/fantasy/horror. Dark.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Repost from elsewhere. 
> 
> Acknowledgement- Many thanks to IreneClaire for reading through many versions of this for me.

CHAPTER 1

"This isn't real, this isn't real, this  _isn't real_. No fucking  _way_ is this real."

Detective Danny Williams, feisty native of New Jersey with over a hundred solved homicides under his belt to date, gasped out the mumbled protests against his current situation between pained, rasping pants.

He was lying face down in a slight hollow in heather-covered moorland, eyes screwed shut, clutching tightly onto the woody stems with both hands as though his life depended on it. His breath burned in his chest and his heart pounded wildly. He was exhausted. He had been running for…..he had no idea how long he'd been running for. He had to stop, he had to rest.

He flopped over onto his back, staring up at the cloudless blue sky, and allowed himself a moment to try to get his breath back, gather energy and just  _think._

He shook his head slowly as he muttered to himself again. "Not real, not real, not real. I'm delirious, I'm dreaming, I'm in a coma in a nice, comfortable hospital bed somewhere that is  _not here_. This is  _fucking ridiculous!"_

He forced himself to draw in several deep, shaky breaths, trying to quell the fear that hadn't left him since  _it_ happened. The fear that had been growing as the futility of his efforts to escape became increasingly apparent and was threatening to mutate into uncontrollable panic.

He was depleted now, his body beginning to rebel in a big way. His mind was clouded, his head throbbing. But he  _had_ to try to stay in control. He  _had_ to keep trying.

Danny steeled himself. Hesitantly and with great trepidation, he raised his head slowly above the purple flowers of the surrounding vegetation. He peered over the edge of the hollow in the desperate hope that he had missed  _something_.  _Anything_ that would tell him that what he didn't think could have happened really  _hadn't_  happened.

But nothing had changed.

He was hunkered down on high moorland which swept gently down from his vantage point to an undulating, rocky coastline. Deep, sweeping bays were highlighted with short sections of white sandy beach which seemed to glow in the sun. He thought he was on an island. He could see the sea in the distance in three directions anyway, although higher ground concealed the fourth.

But it was an island far from home (ha! home! Steve would have loved that slip!). Everything was  _wrong-_ familiar but just not right. No way was he in Hawaii at any rate- that right there was at least one fact he was sure of. There were no palm trees, no jungles, no surfers and no shave-ice stalls. For all the sun shone and the sea was a rich turquoise, the persistent wind was cold and cut him to the bone. His jeans and once-white T-shirt offered him little protection and he began to shiver again now he had stopped moving. He had found no shelter. No trees, no buildings, just bleak moorland, heather and long grasses.

But the fact he wasn't in Hawaii wasn't even the crux of the problem- the location was pretty irrelevant and wasn't what was terrifying the crap out of him.

Danny couldn't help but read the evidence in front of him and draw conclusions- he was a detective, it was what he did. And his mind might have been fuzzy round the edges but he remembered well what he was told before  _it_  happened. He just can't accept it as true. Yet  _all_  of the evidence he has seen with his own two eyes corroborates the ridiculous concept that had made him roll his eyes in disbelief at the time.

Brain on cop-autopilot, he replayed the evidence again looking for the flaw in the fucked-up conclusion. He had been here for…how long? He didn't know- it never seemed to get dark. Three days he thought and his cramping guts agreed- he was  _starving._ And yet he had seen no planes and no boats. There were no power lines, no roads. He pulled his phone out of his jeans pocket and looked at it then squeezed his eyes shut, groaning. The battery had finally died. But the message on the screen had never changed for all the time the thing had been functioning….'no service'. And then there were the local inhabitants.

Because, no, it wasn't just some random deserted island that a stereotypical revenge-seeking freak had dumped him on. If only it were that easy! Because  _they_ were there. And  _they_ were another piece of the puzzle.  _They_  seemed to be  _everywhere_ now- a persistent presence, watching, taunting, threatening him silently.

Mostly bearded, dressed in animal skins or cloaks made of brown, woven cloth, the men now encircling him were armed with bows and arrows. They knew he was there. They had noticed him almost as soon as he had appeared. Their initial fearful reactions had gradually given way to curiosity, followed swiftly by aggressive stances and tactical moves. The loose cordon of….warriors?...he cringed at the word…..had surrounded him at a cautious distance….but surrounded him nonetheless.

So that was the sum total of Danny's case. But…but just no way! No way had that crazy guy from the university been right, no  _way_  was time travel actually possible. Danny had bought the man as a total nutjob and potential murder suspect and had played along with his insanity to see where it was leading, but not for a fraction of a second did he think there was any truth in the utter crap he had been spouting.

Danny shook his head incredulously. He was always so damn sceptical and now look where it had landed him. No,  _when_ it had landed him. He should never had touched the freaking artefact, never. Everything had turned to shit from that very moment.

Now he had nowhere to run to, not really. Realisation had dawned some time ago-  _they_  were containing him, waiting for him to tire himself out before they moved in to get him. It was a sound strategy from a tactical point of view. And chances were they wouldn't have to wait much longer before he ceased to represent any sort of threat. With no food and now no water (they had already moved silently between him and the only water source he had found) he was running on empty. But he couldn't stop trying, looking for a way around them, hoping for escape, trying to explore the island without accidentally coming face-to-face with one of  _them_ again.

He raised a hand, fingering hesitantly at the swelling and the oozing cut on his forehead. He swiped at the blood that persisted in running down his face since he had  _almost_ outrun one of them some hours earlier.

He had seen an opening, a wide gap between the silent sentries, had seen the open sea beyond and he had run, a vague plan to swim for it in his mind. The closest man had briefly run to intercept, then stopped, raised his bow and unleashed an arrow. Danny had seen the movement out of the corner of his eye and had thrown himself, frantically trying to twist out of the path of the projectile. He had succeeded but his landing had been unkind. He had awoken some time later, alone again, his attacker having withdrawn back to a safe distance. The rewards for his escape attempt- blood sheeting down his face, blurred vision and an inability to think clearly.

The loose cordon was gradually tightening now, keeping him on the high moorland away from the coast, away from the higher ground blocking his view to the…north? He was pretty sure. Steve would have known instantly, of course. And probably would have ninja-moved his way to freedom by now. Of course Danny was a tough guy too, small stature or not. He was a good shot and could kick ass hand-to-hand as well. But hand to bow-and-arrow? Not so much.

He snorted as he thought of Steve. In other circumstances his best friend would no doubt have come storming to the rescue in the nick of time, all irritatingly tall and heroic. Danny would have been grateful as hell but would have bitched at him anyway because that's just what he did. Steve would be concerned if he didn't. But this was different. Everything was fucked up.

"How about it superSEAL? You can do everything else, can you do time travel as well?" he mumbled. An involuntary giggle followed on from the words and he mentally kicked himself, feeling his sanity threaten to slip and not for the first time.

"No!" he growled, repeating the same internal argument for the umptheenth time since he had abruptly found himself in his current predicament. "Time travel is impossible, it's not real. This is  _bullshit_!"

But his eyes were filled with doubt.

Because it sure as hell  _looked_  real and it sure as hell  _felt_  real.

Without warning Danny's eyes began to sting and fill with tears. He sagged back down to the ground and covered his face with his hands, trying in vain to get a grip of his spiralling emotions.

If it was real, he had no idea how to get back.

If it was real, he was never going to see Grace again.


	2. Chapter 2

CHAPTER 2

Steve McGarrett gazed out of the plane window, steely-faced, slate blue eyes absently watching the bleak, mountainous landscape passing below him as his mind looped endlessly over the latest situation.

It should never have happened. Danny had been on vacation, for goodness sake, and on vacation thousands of miles from any of the multitude of bad guys who might want to wreak revenge on the dogged detective for his role in ensuring they spent a good chunk of their lives behind bars. Provided he remembered to look both ways before he crossed the road, he should have been safe.

But Danny was Danny and one theft and one disappearance later he was involved in a distant investigation and then he was gone.

It had all started a few weeks earlier when Danny had stomped grumpily into Steve's office and thrown a leaflet onto the desk in front of him before launching into a classic Williams rant.

"So Grace wants to go on this dig." He began. "You know, like archaeology?" He mimed digging a hole. "And she wants me to take her. We'll be camping. I am going  _camping_ , Steven. And not here, not even in the US at all. I am going camping in  _Scotland_. And not even on the mainland, oh no, that would be way too easy- camping on another freaking island! Because, apparently, I just can't get enough of island living." Danny's volume had increased incrementally, his hands moving emphatically, back-up to his voice.

"Did you know it's  _cold_  in Scotland? And wet? Not quite as wet as this pineapple infested hellhole admittedly but still. I'm going camping in the cold. And digging. In  _dirt_.  _And_  not only that, Steven, not only that but I am  _paying_  for the pleasure of doing these things. Paying a lot of money. Can you believe it?"

Steve had flicked casually through the leaflet while Danny did his thing, waiting patiently for him to run out of steam. They had been partners for years and best friends for almost as long. Steve knew he had two options; he could press Danny's buttons and escalate the situation for a bit of entertainment, or wait for him to finish and try the calming, supportive approach.

When the subject matter was Gracie, he generally went for the latter option. Danny's daughter was not a matter to tease the man about. Between custody battles and kidnappings, Danny was understandably sensitive when it came to the little girl who meant the whole world to him. Not that she was so little any more- she was almost as tall as her father!

He looked up when Danny paused for air and cut in.

"Yeah Danny, I hear ya. But…sounds like Gracie really wants to do it, right? She's been talking about archaeology for a while, ever since that Indiana Jones marathon we had, remember?"

Steve clocked Danny's mouth opening again, no doubt preparing to apportion blame for that seemingly innocent activity. He held up a hand to stop him. "Which I'm pretty sure was your idea, as I remember it." Danny's mouth shut again. Steve nodded sharply and went on. "And going on a dig, visiting another country, that's educational- that's good, right?"

Danny had nodded reluctantly.

"Plus, you get to spend time with her, right? Just the two of you? That's priceless, right?"

Another nod, and the start of a smile, quickly suppressed.

"So suck it up, Danno!" he had waved the leaflet at Danny. "This is a great opportunity. Scotland's a beautiful country and the dig at Ness of Brodgar is a really high profile excavation- I've actually been reading the publications on it as they come out."

Danny had rolled his eyes.

Steve had ignored him. "They're calling the site a 'Neolithic Cathedral'. It's this huge building that's like 5000 years old… The detail they've been finding out about prehistoric diet from isotope analysis of human bone found there is quiet incredible. And they've been recovering all these awesome artefacts- there's even an online blog….." Steve tailed off, narrowing his eyes, realising Danny was on the cusp of snarking at him for being a nerd. He changed tack. "Plus the woman running the dig is not only a world-renowned expert….. she's pretty cute, Danno…..you might even enjoy yourself, buddy."

Steve smiled faintly at the memory. Danny had snatched back the leaflet and wandered off muttering something about how no way was he going near another version of Gabby…. but he'd been looking at the brochure with renewed interest.

And as it turned out Danny  _had_  enjoyed himself. He and Steve had spoken a few times over the phone during the two weeks he and Grace had spent on Orkney. The cluster of islands that made up Orkney were located just off the north coast of Scotland and Danny and Grace's dig was on the biggest island, Orkney mainland. Small in population but big on historical sites and friendly people, the place had sucked them in and Danny's enthusiasm had ramped up slowly from zero to gushing.

He'd been told he was a natural at excavation and he had a good eye. "Turns out archaeology is a lot like detective work." He had said, voice filled with smug pride. "They actually appreciate my skills here, Steven. AND no one's shot at me. Not even once. You realise people don't even lock their doors here? People are actually  _nice_ to each other. You would hate it, babe, your ninja skills would be entirely redundant and no  _way_ would you get to shoot people on a regular basis."

Steve smiled at the memory of the light-hearted banter. Danny had sounded  _happy._ He pulled out his phone, flicking to the photo Danny had sent him three days earlier of he and Grace proudly holding up chunks of 5000 year old Neolithic pottery they had found on the dig, the geometric decorations impressed into the clay as clear as the day they were made. The matching, beaming smiles brought a weak echo of one to Steve's lips. Steve had texted him back, teasing him about becoming a nerd too.

But then things had gone unexpectedly, abruptly downhill. That girl had disappeared from the dig- a young student, barely out of her teens. The local police were searching, of course, but Danny had said some artefact had disappeared at the same time and word on the site was that she had stolen it. Danny hadn't been convinced. He had told Steve he was going to do some poking around of his own.

Then, just a few hours later, had come the desperate phone call from Gracie, young voice wavering with emotion.

"Uncle Steve, Danno's gone. They…they can't find him."

And now, three planes rides later, Steve found himself flying from Edinburgh bound for Orkney. The cluster of windswept islands were one of the few places on the planet he had never before set foot.

This was what they did, he and Danny. Danny had been to North Korea and Afghanistan to bring Steve home. Steve went to Columbia for Danny. Coming home without him, albeit out of necessity to ensure his 'legitimate' release was secured, had been one of the hardest things he had ever done. He shivered involuntarily as he remembered the condition his friend had been in when he had picked him up from the airport. Prison life had not been kind to him.

No way was he coming back without him this time.

Steve watched as the Scottish mainland gave way to sea, then almost immediately to the close grouping of tiny, low-lying islands. The sun suddenly came out and the islands seemed to glow green, the beaches white and the sea azure, startling him with their unexpected similarity to his home.

There were more than 70 islands in the archipelago and his eyes scanned the endless coastlines, the vast, cold sea. He drew a deep breath, trying to shake off an unexpected feeling of helplessness and fear. His mission had barely started- positive determination was the only viable mindset. He couldn't let himself think he might not succeed.

"Where are you, buddy?" he murmured quietly.

TBC


	3. Chapter 3

CHAPTER 3

"Lieutenant Commander McGarrett? I'm Detective Inspector Miller. I'm in charge of the investigation into Daniel William's disappearance."

The Orcadian accent contrasted oddly with the rugged face from which it emanated, softer than other Scottish accents Steve had encountered in the past and almost tuneful in its resonance.

Steve nodded and shook the proffered hand. The police officer had been easy for Steve to single out in the tiny airport at Kirkwall, flanked as he was by two grim-faced uniformed colleagues. The local police had put some effort into their welcoming committee.

Steve met Miller's eyes with an intense, appraising gaze. He was tall as Steve, late forties, with receding hair clipped short and a solid, muscular build. Steve recognised the look in the green eyes- focused and professional with a carefully guarded edge of annoyance. It was understandable. An unsolicited visit from a high ranking officer from an outside police force, even worse a ranking officer with a personal connection to the missing person, was never welcome.

The man wanted to be left to concentrate on his enquiry, not have to baby-sit someone unfamiliar with the area and its criminal underworld who would likely criticise and second guess every move the local police made. Steve couldn't provide any reassurance- there was every chance he would be doing exactly that. With Danny missing for almost three days now, the man was going to have to prove his worth to avoid Steve's wrath.

Miller was all business, keen to get back to the job. "Please follow me, sir. I have a car waiting."

Steve nodded brusquely, falling to into step beside the older man. "Fine, but where's Grace Williams? I need to see her straight away."

"She's at Kirkwall police station. Her grandmother arrived from Manchester yesterday so she's got familiar company."

Steve nodded, relieved. Rachel, stoic as ever, had told him her mother was en-route from England to take care of Grace during the frantic flurry of phone calls which had followed Grace's tearful plea to McGarrett himself.

He took a slightly shaky breath. He needed to see Danny's little girl so badly. He had made promises to Danny through the years to be there for her when Danny couldn't and he had every intention of keeping his word to his best friend. And more than that- he loved Gracie and it physically hurt him to think of what she must be going through. He didn't know if he could offer her much comfort- she was too mature and intelligent to accept anything but entirely realistic promises. But he had to try.

Steve followed Miller through the glass doors of the airport foyer to a waiting marked police car outside and slid into the back seat beside him.

Miller barked an instruction at the uniformed cop in the driving seat then turned to Steve. "I imagine you have a lot of questions and I'll do my best to give you answers."

Steve opened his mouth reflexively then clamped it shut, realising he was about to yell something along the lines of 'yeah, where the hell is he and why haven't you found him yet?' at the Scottish officer purely out of worry and frustration. He took a deep calming breath then forced out some more appropriate, controlled words. "Thanks. I need to know what you've got, what you think has happened."

Miller sighed. "I'm going to be entirely honest. We are doing everything we can but right now we have no sightings, no suspicious activity, nothing. You know about the other disappearance, of course, and there is a fine chance the two may be linked, but I'm sure as a fellow experienced investigator you know well that jumping to conclusions is a foolish move and we have no positive evidence of a link."

Steve closed his eyes and shook his head a little, again clamping down on his knee-jerk verbal response. He needed to establish whether the investigation- and Miller- were in fact half-assed  _before_  he started shouting. "Okay. So you're saying you have nothing. Tell me what you've done and what you  _do_ know." Steve was pretty sure his tone was impatient rather than contemptuous but it was a close run thing.

Miller nodded. The look in his eyes clearly showed he had registered the subtle challenge to his investigative abilities and resented it, but he kept his tone even. This wasn't the time for the tense, emotion-fuelled alpha-male posturing that was already humming beneath the surface of the interaction between the two men and they both knew it.

"Of course," said Miller. " I realise you were briefed over the phone by Inspector Wright before you started travelling, so much of this you know already. But I want you to hear it from me so I know you've heard it right. I'll summarise events to date sequentially. We can go into more detail later."

Miller intensified his eye contact for an instant before he started, no doubt to ensure he had McGarrett's full attention. He most certainly did.

"Okay. The excavations at Ness of Brodgar commenced on the 1st of this month. The excavation team are camping on farmland about a mile from the site. A total of 5 staff from the local university and 20 volunteers, including Daniel and Grace Williams, made up the team. On the evening of the 12th most of the party attended a lecture at Orkney College in Kirkwall. Selena Ritchie, a 20 year old student from Glasgow University, was one of the few who did not attend having said she felt unwell. When the remaining members of the party returned around 2330 hours she was missing and has not been seen since. Some finds from the excavation were also missing from the portacabin they were being stored in. They have not been recovered at this time. One theory is that Ritchie may have stolen the artefacts and made good her escape. They are apparently rare and undoubtedly valuable on the black market. Mr Williams…"

"Detective Williams" Steve couldn't help but snap.

Miller raised an eyebrow. "Apologies.  _Detective_ Williams identified himself as a police officer early on, even had his badge with him. He was keen to help us with our enquiries into Ms Ritchie's disappearance and I understand had been asking questions on his own."

Steve smiled slightly. That sounded like Danny- always on duty, a cop through and through.

Miller went on. "Detective Williams and his daughter had been sharing a tent but, on the night of the 14th, Grace Williams decided to spend the night in a neighbouring tent with a girl of her own age who she had become friendly with, plus the friend's mother. Detective Williams was last seen by a small group of students, walking from the campsite in the direction of the Loch of Harray. That was around 2300 hours that night. He's not been seen since. His absence was reported by his daughter at 0645 hours on the 15th when she went to wake him."

Miller glanced at Steve again. "Lieutenant Commander, we have of course taken all appropriate steps and the investigation into the disappearances is my priority right now. My forensic team has swept the Williams' tent and the route he is thought to have taken towards the loch. We've tried to trace his mobile phone but it has been non-functioning since the time of his disappearance when it was recorded as being somewhere within a two-mile radius of the campsite, as we would expect."

Steve cut in impatiently. "And you've searched the area, I presume?"

Miller looked at him incredulously for a moment then nodded, the muscles in his jaw working silently. "We have search teams working across the island with local volunteers boosting their numbers. We also have coastguard helicopters carrying out a grid search of the island and beyond. I have officers at the airport and at all commercial docks monitoring our transport links with the Scottish mainland, the outer Orkney Isles and Shetland. No flights or sailings are recorded as having taken place between the last sighting and the commencement of our monitoring."

Miller sighed and raised his hands a little, palms up. "Of course, small boats can move around here largely unnoticed which is why I have had officers conduct enquiries at all of the anchorages on the island. We have no reports of unusual activity at all. We've taken all the usual steps. We've pulled in the main players from the islands' limited underworld scene. They gave a pretty convincing display of ignorance on the matter. In addition we have officers following up potential black market contacts for the missing artefacts. I am of course open to suggestions and advice but I can assure you this is being handled appropriately."

Miller pulled out a folder from a briefcase at his feet. "These are copies of all of the witness statements taken by my officers to date. We've spoken to everyone involved with the excavation and everyone we have traced who was in the general vicinity around the times of both disappearances. Please go through them and let me know if you would like to speak to any in person."

As Miller spoke, Steve found his heart getting heavier and heavier. He had so hoped that the investigation was  _poor,_ that they were missing something obvious that would lead Steve straight to his missing friend. But Miller was saying all the right things. He sat back in the car seat and closed his eyes for a long moment.

"So where is he?" Steve's words were almost whispered.

Miller cleared his throat before addressing Steve with a softer tone than before. "There's a question I hope you can answer for me- I understand you know Detective Williams well. This is sensitive, but you appreciate I have to ask. Does he have a history of depression-"

Steve sat forwards and held up his hand sharply, cutting Miller off. The answer to the question was undoubtedly  _yes-_ but it was irrelevant. "You can stop right there. There is absolutely no way he's gone voluntarily. None. Grace is his whole world and he would never leave her, he would never take off, he would never do…anything….to himself. End of. I appreciate you have to ask but, just…no. I know him. No."

Miller nodded, apparently taking Steve's declaration as fact.

Steve drew a deep, shaky breath and screwed his eyes shut again. He suddenly felt tired. He let his mind drift for a moment and watched the landscape passing around him.

The green farmland around the airport had given way to the narrow streets of Kirkwall, the largest town on Orkney mainland. Steve peered up at the impressive sandstone frontage of the St Magnus Cathedral as they passed slowly by it. Some part of his mind acknowledged the beauty of the building but Danny was gone and Steve's senses were numb. The structure loomed above them, truly ancient and witness to centuries of triumphs and tragedies. Theirs was simply the latest in a long line and the building would outlive them all no matter what the outcome of their personal drama.

The car turned away from the cathedral and Steve was bumped abruptly back to reality as he spotted the modern police station a short way ahead. There were several TV vans outside- apparently Danny was big news.

"Grace is a brave girl." Miller proclaimed suddenly then hesitated, casting a cautious glance at Steve before continuing. "She's in the process of filming an appeal to go out on the national news to encourage anyone who might know something to come forward and talk to us."

Steve's eyebrows shot up and he felt a surge of anger and protectiveness at the idea of Grace being put on public display in such a way.

Miller clearly read his reaction correctly and held up his hand, wisely continuing to speak in justification of the decision. "When it was mentioned as something constructive that could be done to help the enquiry she insisted on doing it personally. Her grandmother fully supported the idea. And I can honestly say I've seen adults who are less composed in this sort of situation. I did suggest her grandmother do the appeal instead, but that girl would hear none of it."

Steve eyed Miller then sat back in silence, biting his lip yet again to prevent any inappropriate words from slipping out. His gut clenched at the thought of what Grace was going through. He couldn't help but feel a rush of pride at the news too. Grace could be every bit as stubborn as her father when she put her mind to it and it seemed she had his bravery in spades as well.

He looked up at Miller again nodding curtly to indicate his acceptance of the situation if not his approval.

The police car pulled up and Steve followed Miller mutely into the main entrance of the police station, past the front desk and along a winding corridor before the man came to a halt in front of a closed door. A paper sign attached to the outside bore the hand-written word 'SILENCE'.

Miller turned and raised a finger to his lips redundantly. Steve rolled his eyes and followed the older man in as he quietly opened the door and entered, sitting down immediately at the back of the room in an empty row of plastic seats. The remainder of the room was packed- perhaps two dozen members of the press and TV crews were sandwiched in to the rows of seats that had been squashed together in the small meeting room.

All eyes were on the front of the room where Grace Williams and her elderly grandmother sat together, facing the throng. The grandmother had a supportive hand on the young girl's arm, but it was Gracie who was holding the floor.

She was leaning forwards with her forearms on the table in front of them, looking around, seeking eye contact with the members of the press, with the TV cameras. Grace was speaking, her voice wavering with emotion but crystal clear and carefully controlled.

"…I just want him back. Please look at the photos of him and phone in if you think you've seen him. I….I miss him."

Steve's throat constricted without warning and he bit his lip, hard, as he listened to the small, vulnerable but determined figure whose presence effortlessly dominated the room. Her poise and maturity hit him like a punch to the gut. She was amazing but she shouldn't have had to be. This shouldn't be happening.

A smartly dressed lady at the front of the room, who seemed to be orchestrating the event, stood up. "Thank you Miss Williams. Now could you please look into a camera and say a few words directly to your father, just in case he sees this appeal."

For a moment Grace wavered, the implication that Danny was staying away out of choice blatantly hitting her hard. She looked up, eyes shifting desperately around the room for  _something,_ anything to give her the strength to go on. Then she met Steve's gaze and locked onto it, her beautiful brown eyes filling with relief. For a moment it was as if there was no one else in the room. They silently communicated their love and their fears. And the shared knowledge that no, Danno had  _not_ left by choice. Steve nodded slightly, conveying his absolute pride and support, and Grace visibly steeled herself. She turned to a nearby camera and looked right into it. Steve held his breath.

"Danno, I miss you. Don't worry about me, I'm okay because Gran and Uncle Steve are here. But I need you to come back. I love you, Danno." A lone tear tracked down her face and Steve could take no more. He stood and strode towards the front of the room. Grace leapt to her feet and ran to meet him.

The two embraced and Gracie finally broke, sobs racking her slim body.

Steve couldn't help the words that poured out of his mouth unbidden, whispered into her hair as she wept against his chest.

"It's OK Gracie, I'll get him back, I'll find him. I promise."

TBC


	4. Chapter 4

CHAPTER 4

Steve glanced at the display on the dash of his hire car- 3.15am. He was driving slowly along empty roads, heading for the campsite where Danny was last seen. He familiarised himself with the landscape as he went, SEAL autopilot fully engaged. He was tired but no way could he sleep.

A short while after the tearful reunion with Grace, Steve had spent several hours with Miller and his team reviewing tactics and evidence, reading through the dozens of statements that had been taken.

He had to admit, ruefully, he was impressed- the investigation appeared thorough and professional. But that was no comfort when they had literally no leads, no positive lines of enquiry, other than the second missing person. And, as with Danny, Selena Ritchie seemed to have vanished off the face of the planet. Nothing had been heard from her, no contact had been made with her family or friends.

And, as Danny had told Steve himself, the idea of her having  _stolen_ the missing artefacts seemed increasingly unlikely. She was a decent, hard-working student who seemed about as likely to steal artefacts from the dig as Grace herself. Her parents were in Orkney too, making tearful appeals to match Grace's and searching themselves as any decent parents would.

Then a late-night text from Grace's grandmother, Emily, had taken Steve to the hotel room she was sharing with Grace. The girl was distraught and far from able to sleep.

Steve sat in an armchair and held her in his lap, allowing the exhausted grandmother to sleep. They had talked in low voices about the man they both missed, exchanging reminiscences and desires until, finally, Grace had fallen asleep in his arms. He had dozed briefly, then gently laid Grace in her bed, tucked the covers around her and slipped out of the room. He had no intention of even trying to sleep. Not yet.

Steve's destination, the dig campsite, was located a couple of miles past the excavation site at Brodgar in the low hills of Harray.

It was still light- the summer solstice was fast approaching and already nighttime never quite made it to Orkney thanks to its northern latitude and the tilt of the earth. Instead, for a handful of hours either side of midnight, an eerie half-light slowly descended then ebbed away, replaced by hazy pastel pinks and oranges heralding dawn and true daylight.

Steve followed the main road from Kirkwall to Stromness, turning off just after the prominent mound of the Neolithic tomb at Maes Howe and heading northwards. The island seemed to be sleeping- there was no traffic and no wind. He had the illogical but uneasy feeling that he was the only person in the world.

As the landscape opened out in front of him he found he had to stop the car in the middle of the road. He got out and stood, staring.

Opening out in front of him in the pale oranges and pinks of the impending Orcadian dawn was a landscape from another time.

The fenced roadway, a subtle modern intrusion, wound its way along a long, narrow bridge of land between two inland lakes- the Loch of Harray and the Loch of Stenness. Mist rose slowly from the bodies of water, drifting loosely and adding to the otherworldly feel.

A single standing stone stood at the narrowest point of the land bridge- the width of the single track road and no more- a lone, towering sentinel several metres high. Two stone circles, one to the north and one to the south of the gargantuan monolith, lay a short distance away where the land between the lochs was somewhat wider.

Steve recognised them instantly- the fragmentary remains of the Stones of Stenness and the simply vast Ring of Brodgar. Both were situated on circular man-made platforms surrounded by impressive banks and ditches, mammoth feats of engineering in themselves. Their existence was plain evidence that when the monuments had been constructed literally  _thousands_ of years ago, way back in the Neolithic which was the  _stone age_ , for goodness' sake,  _someone_ had been in control.  _Someone_  had been able to convince, conscript or enslave the surrounding population to carry out their will. To pour blood, sweat and tears into digging ditches, quarrying stones, dragging them for  _miles_ to the chosen site and planting them deep into the earth for… _what_? Now so far removed from that time, it was only possible to make educated guesses.

Squinting slightly, Steve could just make out the neat piles of spoil marking the location of the dig at the Ness of Brodgar. As if the site wasn't impressive enough, over the preceding few years archaeologists from the local university had begun to dig in what had appeared to be an empty field between the Ring of Brodgar and the lone standing stone, known as the Watch Stone. What they had found was nothing short of incredible. Remains of drystone buildings with walls up to  _4 metres thick_ clustered within an enormous defensive wall. The buildings contained a huge array of bizarre artefacts and so much animal bone that the scientists had estimated that  _hundreds_ of cattle had been slaughtered in one go.

The site was a defended ritual complex spanning the land bridge. It was a power centre, controlling access to this extraordinary group of monuments. Back through the mists of time it was the setting for unknown religious practices, probably bizarre and savage to the modern mind.

Steve could see why even Danny, undoubtedly the most cynical man he had ever met, had been sucked in by the spell of the place. Standing there and seeing the cluster of structures which had meant so much, had signified so much power, was genuinely awe-inspiring. The atmosphere was extraordinary.

It was almost like travelling back in time.

…..

They never spoke, never said a word. They just watched, waiting. He couldn't escape them. Danny watched them back, trying to find a chink in their system.

He could see ten of them from the hollow he had taken some semblance of refuge in, and could safely assume the line continued behind the low rise behind him, encircling him entirely. The closest man was perhaps 100 yards from him and they stood around the same distance apart.

Occasionally another figure would trudge into view, taking the place of one who had apparently earned some rest and who would then trudge away, retracing the footsteps of his substitute, retreating to…somewhere. There was no convenient grand 'changing of the guard' when attention might come away from him.

Danny had been scared for so long he was getting  _bored_ for goodness sake. Why couldn't they just come to him, try to finish it? Let him take some of them out? He knew he was answering his own question. But there was nothing stopping them felling him with an arrow from a distance. He had been out in the open repeatedly yet they had only fired when it looked like he might break through their cordon. They wanted him to live, for now at any rate. But why? What did they want with him?

Anger born of frustration began to rise up and suddenly Danny stood, holding his hands out to the side.

"Come on! Enough! Come and get me you freaks!" he yelled, then roared unintelligibly in frustration as not one figure so much as twitched.

"Come on! What are you waiting for?" he screamed, so loud that his voice broke on the last word. He picked up a stone and lobbed it in the direction of the closest man, not that he had any chance of striking anyone from that distance.

A distant shout suddenly ended the one-sided exchange. The word was unrecognisable to him but the commanding tone was not. Whatever the meaning it caused Danny's guards to spring into action, their weapons raised in front of them. As one they started striding towards him.

He backed up sharply, then whirled around and ran the short distance to the crest of the low rise behind him. He stumbled to a halt. The men were closing in on him from all directions. He had nowhere to go.

He staggered round in a circle, gasping in fear, then stumbled over a loose stone. Glancing down at it, determination to fight to the end took over and he picked it up. Looking up again at his antagonisers, he swore loudly then launched himself, running full pelt, bearing the stone above his head in his right hand and fully expecting the searing pain of an arrow to fell him before he ever had the chance to make contact.

But it didn't come. As he reached his hastily-selected target, a slender man only a couple of inches taller than him, he realised with a start he had to be a teenager, and by no means a hardened fighter. There was, unmistakably, fear in the youthful blue eyes. The weapon pointing Danny's way- not a bow…a spear?- wavered and, at the last minute was thrown to one side as the young man raised his hands to try to stop the human cannon ball catapulting towards him.

Taken aback by the true nature of his target, Danny's raised hand faltered and he diverted at the last moment from his intended deadly blow to one that merely grazed the side of Blue Eye's head. It was enough, the target falling to the side, stunned.

Danny never stopped moving. The paltry exchange, although astonishing given he had firmly expected to be making his last stand at that very moment, merely slowed him for an instant before he kept right on running. He was suddenly outside the cordon and the closest to freedom he'd been for days!

He made for the higher ground they had been keeping him away from, not letting himself wonder why he hadn't yet been shot.

He risked a glance back. They were giving chase, all of them, but running steadily not frantically. Somehow he had gained a lead of some thirty yards on the leaders.

An uneasy feeling came over him…it seemed as though they were okay with him running the direction he was going in, now. They  _wanted_ him to run this way now. But that made no sense, when they had kept him away from it for so long.

But he had to keep going, he had to keep running and maybe, just maybe, salvation of some sort might lie over the hill. As he hit the rising ground and began his ascent, his physical weakness after days of starvation and the injury to his head kicked in, only adrenaline forcing his trembling legs to continue. His chest burned as he climbed the steep slope, his feet tripping and sliding on the loose stones hidden beneath the carpet of heather. He  _had_ to keep going. He had to keep trying.

At the point of collapse, Danny fought his way the last few steps to the top of the hill. He scrubbed a hand roughly across his eyes, trying to focus on what lay in the valley beyond, not willing to believe what his bleary vision was telling him. He stumbled, falling to his knees. "No!" he sobbed out as he finally accepted the truth of the scene in front of him.

Far below the high ground where Danny knelt, gasping for breath, were two lochs. On the narrow bridge of land between them were two stone circles, a single gargantuan monolith and a cluster of massive drystone buildings within a huge outer wall.

In that moment he knew exactly where he was. He knew it well, but not like this. It was Brodgar. Minus road, minus fences, minus the little modern bungalow near the excavation site. It was Brodgar as it _would_ have been.

He stared in utter horror. There was no denying what had happened anymore- and he was totally screwed.

"No," he whispered again, feeling utterly helpless.

A noise behind him made him turn his head, then try to scramble backwards. Blue Eyes and his entourage had caught up. He briefly tried to get his legs underneath him, but he couldn't find the strength. He froze, stuck sitting on his backside, legs splaying in front of him, entirely vulnerable.

Now Blue Eyes stood over him, his bearded compatriots slowly falling into place at his side. The youth no longer looked scared- he was pissed. Danny understood-he had made him into the weak link, had shown him up in front of his peers. It looked like the effects of humiliation transcended the generations. Danny's eyes dropped to the spear Blue Eyes had apparently retrieved after their encounter. The carefully crafted flint spearhead now hovered rock-steady two feet in front of him, pointing squarely between his eyes.

Incapable of fighting and quaking with fear inside, Danny was shocked to his very core by the unfolding situation. But no way was he ready to die yet. Danny's temper might have been quick, but he was far from stupid and he recognised the only route left open to him in an instant. He tried to communicate. He tried to look non-threatening. He held his hands out to the side, palms open, and smiled gently, looking directly into those angry blue eyes. "Please….please, I don't know what you want. I'm …..lost. I don't want to fight you."

Blue Eyes blinked a couple of times. He grunted out a word that, of course, Danny couldn't understand. Danny smiled softly in response, hoping beyond hope he could get through to him.

He held the gaze of the man in front of him. The blue eyes burned with a fierce intelligence. They seemed to look into his soul. Then the expression softened a little, an edge of doubt creeping in. A small, uncertain smile came to the younger man's lips and the spear lowered a touch, the end wavering.

Danny's heart was racing, beating so loud he was sure it could be heard. He hardly dared to hope but he felt maybe, just maybe, he was making some headway.

Blue Eyes turned to the man to his right, uttering a gruff phrase, the tone suggesting it was a question. Danny glanced at the second man. His expression was hard as he barked a harsh reply. Blue Eyes nodded then turned back to Danny with an expression of regret.

"Please.." Danny tried, heart sinking.

Blue Eyes met Danny's eyes one last time, nodded once, then raised his spear above his shoulder. He pulled it back a fraction then, yelling ferociously, drove it downwards into Danny's thigh.

Danny yelled out in agony, clutching desperately at the shaft of the spear. Blue Eyes maintained the pressure, shifting to stand over Danny and putting his full weight into it.

White hot pain engulfed Danny, his mind reverberating with the echoes of his own screams as his shaking hands tried in vain to push against the relentless pressure of the spear. He opened his eyes and looked up, his tear-glazed vision failing to block out the detached, clinical fascination now dominating the expression of the man he had fleetingly thought might be his saviour.


	5. Chapter 5

CHAPTER 5

Professor Abigail Roy, the director of the excavations at Ness of Brodgar, proved to be the epitome of contrast. She was accomplished and at the forefront of her field yet was still youthful at just 35. She was slight but plainly strong, her strap-like muscles flexing beneath her close-fitting tank top as she walked. She was supremely knowledgeable yet gave the impression of being shy and modest. She managed to look beautiful and stylish despite being clad in dirty khaki cargo pants.

Steve took a sly look at her out of the corner of his eye as they walked slowly around the excavation site together. He had known the woman in charge of the dig at Ness of Brodgar was attractive for some time, the excavation having been of idle interest to him way before the current situation, but the effortless elegance emanating from the woman still took him by surprise. In different circumstances he might have allowed himself to be distracted.

Steve had whiled away the last few hours constructively, making himself familiar with the layout of the campsite and the route Danny was believed to have taken on his 'walk'. He had assessed possible ambush sites, parking places for getaway vehicles and general lines of sight a person or persons watching his friend might have utilised. Information catalogued in his mind, he had headed to the Ness of Brodgar to continue his personal mission.

He arrived just minutes after the excavation team who were scurrying around selecting buckets and trowels before retreating to their assigned places in the large trench to begin digging. Steve could see them casting curious looks his way, peering over and around sections of carefully-cleaned walling.

The professor had just concluded giving Steve a tour of the vestiges of Neolithic buildings that had been identified in the excavation trench and the subject of conversation had shifted to the missing artefacts.

"All of the finds from the site are cleaned and stored here in the finds hut." said Professor Roy, indicating a nearby portacabin. They walked towards it. "I'm ashamed to admit it wasn't locked- you just don't expect petty crime in a place like this. I became complacent, I suppose." Her accent was chocolate smooth and upmarket Scots, in keeping with her roots in the posh Morningside area of Scotland's capital city, Edinburgh.

Steve smiled. "It does sound a little too good to be true."

"I know. It's one of the things I love about Orkney. It's just so safe….usually." she sighed deeply.

There were a handful of camping chairs set up outside the portacabin- no doubt where the excavation team took their tea breaks. Professor Roy sagged down into one.

Steve sat beside her, watching her carefully. "Tell me about the finds, Professor."

"Of course. Although call me Abby, please. Three artefacts disappeared in total; a grooved ware pottery vessel- typical of the period and not rare in itself, but the pot was almost complete which does make it a more unusual thing. I suppose it might be worth something. Not something I normally consider- the research value is the only relevant thing to me."

She sighed again. "Then there was a flattened oval sandstone pebble with painted decorations on it- the so-called 'eyebrow motif'. The image recurs on Neolithic sites across Europe and clearly meant something important. Universal. Its value…I honestly couldn't say. Finally there was the quartzite cube. Pure white and a beautiful thing, in my opinion. To my knowledge there's only one other and it's on display at Tankerness House museum in Kirkwall. Each face on the cube measured roughly five centimetres by five centimetres and there was a different motif incised into each face. The eyebrow motif was there again, plus a variety of others. I have photos, I'll email them to you."

"Thanks. I've seen Inspector Miller's pictures of course, but I'd appreciate my own copies." Steve replied. "What about Selena Ritchie? What can you tell me about her?"

She smiled for an instant. "Selena- nice girl, keen, hard worker, good eye- she could have made a field archaeologist with the right experience."

"Professor Roy. Abby, sorry. Do you think she stole the missing artefacts?"

She turned her dark brown eyes on Steve for an instant before turning away again. "At the time the circumstantial evidence made me seriously consider it but I have to confess I was surprised. She didn't seem the type. And now, after Danny…" she hesitated, glancing at Steve again, oozing sorrow and sympathy "..when he went too….one has to assume there's more at play here than a simple theft. And I'm sorry. I'm sorry this has happened. It's the last thing we need, to be honest."

Steve frowned. "Why do you say that?"

"To be blunt" she replied, "we can only excavate here because clients will  _pay_  to come here to learn how to excavate and by far the majority of our revenue derives from the US. When it becomes known that this type of thing has happened…it can only do us harm."

"I see." Steve's reply was curt. The comment was perfectly fair but it still made him feel sick to his stomach that money was even a concern to  _anyone_ when the fates of Danny and Selena were as yet unknown. His sentiments must have been reflected in his tone.

"I don't mean to sound cold, Commander. I just have to think of the practicalities. I don't mean to belittle the real significance of what has happened. Danny was... is a great man." She broke off, turning her face abruptly away from Steve. He frowned, but kept silent, waiting to see where her train of thought was going.

"Danny is so….selfless- his only concern is his daughter and he plainly dotes on her. Of course, he was the one who was first to defend Selena too when the initial accusation was put forwards. He and Grace had socialised with her a little, I think. Yes, he's a good man, hard to find. I do hope he's alright."

Steve narrowed his eyes. He could only see the archaeologist in profile, but the expression on her face was plain to read- fear-yes, frustration-yes, but also a wistful desire that didn't quite fit with the official picture. He suddenly wondered if his partner had been having a little extra-curricular fun on the dig after all. He'd kept strangely quiet about it if so, but the archaeologist was intelligent, slight, dark-haired and pretty- just Danny's type.

He took a moment to decide how best to dig deeper. But Steve, as it turned out, had become a cop and cops get nowhere by being subtle. He went for the jugular.

"Okay. So- it's important I understand everything that happened here in the lead up to the disappearances. So, did you and Danny- did anything happen between you two?"

She laughed dryly, then blew out a small breath. "It's funny, you know, life on digs like these never really changes. You live in close proximity to each other, you work hard, you share a few beers together every day. The whole team, I mean of course. Students tend to pair off after a week or so, irrespective of relationships back home. The dig romances start. The dig is kind of a separate reality I suppose…does that make sense?"

Steve snorted and smiled a little. "Sure. What happens on the dig stays on the dig, right? That type of mentality?"

"Yes, exactly! Immoral, perhaps, but yes. I outgrew that side of dig culture years ago. At least I thought I had until Danny Williams came strutting on to my site."

"Okay….so you and Danny….."

She laughed again, sharp and loud. "I wish! I tried. He said he was flattered but he was here with his daughter and this trip was about her not him. And apparently casual relationships aren't really his thing." She looked away from Steve again.

Steve bit his lip. The edge of bitterness to the woman's tone was unmissable. If she wasn't in the habit of putting herself out there and Danny had turned her down…..that was a motive right there. She apparently hadn't noticed his reaction- she had turned back in Steve's direction but she was looking off into the distance, eyes unfocused and dreamy. "Shame" she said, in a small, wistful voice. "He has a really nice body. Those shoulders….that backside…..you just want to stick your teeth in, know what I mean?"

She looked up at Steve and he carefully removed his knee-jerk bunny-in-the-headlights expression at the bizarrely candid comments from the world-renowned professional. "Er…sure. He does… keep fit. I guess."

The woman shook her head, abruptly, a look of horror flitting across her face. "Sorry, that was really inappropriate. He means a lot to you, doesn't he?"

Steve found himself caught on the back foot. The woman was intelligent, upfront and hugely appealing but now had the closest thing to a motive for meaning Danny harm that he'd come across. He certainly didn't want to bare his innermost feelings to her but it was important she realised that yes, Danny meant one hell of a lot to him.

He chose his words carefully. "Yeah. He's a great father…..and a good friend. I'm not leaving here without him. I appreciate you talking with me but if you think of anything else…if you  _know_  anything else about what's happened to him you'd be best to tell me now…" His tone was even but he fixed her with a penetrating glare. The warning was subtle but it was there nonetheless.

Abigail Roy raised an eyebrow and nodded, message received. "Rest assured I will, Commander."

…..

Danny clawed his way back to consciousness, then rapidly regretted it. His new injury made itself known the moment he achieved something resembling awareness. God, his leg  _hurt._ A constant roaring pain gripped him from his hip to his knee and excruciating rhythmic stabs of hot agony flashed where he guessed the entry wound was, keeping time with the beating of his heart. He sucked in a sobbing breath but then the sudden onset of relentless waves of nausea flowed over him and for a terrifying moment he couldn't breathe at all.

He vomited, retching miserably, dimly acknowledging he must be lying on his side because he wasn't choking on it. That was something, at least.

Insides purged, the nausea retreated. He breathed deeply, trying to control the pain, trying to understand what was happening. He was sure now, he was lying on his side on cold stone and- yes- he was very sure his hands were tied behind his back. The woody weave of the heather rope cut into his wrists. He must have been like that for some time as his hands were mercifully numb.

With a huge amount of trepidation, he cracked open his eyes. It was dark. He hadn't seen 'proper' darkness for many days and it took him by surprise. His eyes slowly adjusted and his still-blurred vision revealed…stone. A cave? No, walls, he realised. Drystone walls forming an almost rectangular room but for its curved corners.

He  _recognised_  it.

He was pretty damn sure he was inside one of the buildings at Ness of Brodgar, jammed against the back wall a good 15 yards from the low doorway and daylight beyond. The door was open…or maybe there wasn't one to block the entrance at all. If only he could move he might be able to get out.

 _If_ he could move. He turned his head a little to look down at his leg. His trousers were gone which was…..just another crappy fact in a big, fat list of crappy facts Danny could apply to his life right then. But the spear had also gone. At least he had been unconscious when  _that_ had happened. There was a crude tourniquet around his leg, again formed from the rough heather rope, and the wound had been packed with some sort of green stuff. Slime, for want of a better word. Another one for his fast-growing List of Crap. He supposed it was meant to help him, but it sure as hell wasn't reducing the pain from his injury.

He was confused,  _seriously_ confused, not just because his injured head was making sure there were unhelpfully large gaps in his memory right then, but the memories he had retained just made no sense.

He remembered the time travel thing. Not so much  _how_ it had happened but the fact that it  _had._ He finally had to accept it. And the people here- what did they want? All he had to go on was what they had done- hound him, starve him, chase him, stab him but  _keep him alive._ It just made no sense. But there it was- he  _was_  alive.

His breath hitched suddenly, another realisation re-solidifying itself in his struggling mind. He was alive, but what was the point? He knew nothing about this world, he had no place in it. No one he loved even existed yet. He would never see Gracie's smile again. And Gracie..oh god, she would be devastated. Her Danno wasn't coming home, he had vanished, leaving her alone thousands of miles from home. He screwed his eyes shut, guilt and fear and loss escalating unbearably. It  _hurt._

"Gracie, I'm so sorry." He murmured, gritting his teeth through a sob. He so wanted to get back to her.

Then he shook his head. "No! There  _has_ to be a way. There  _has_ to."

He tried  _hard_ to remember how he had got to where he was. More fragments of memory pushed to the surface. It was that artefact- the quartzite cube. Yes, he was sure of it- the cube that had done this. He had held the cube and pictured Selena, just as he was instructed, had said the words he was told to repeat. He had expected..nothing…. but instead had been rewarded with a blinding flash of light then nothing but seemingly endless whirling vertigo. But when the world had stopped spinning, the artefact was gone from his grasp and was nowhere around him. Without it, how could he get back?

He lay still, mind ticking over slowly. But then it hit him. Maybe there  _was_ a chance. During the nice, safe, educational dig in civilised 2015, Danny had been enjoying himself and Danny had been paying attention. He had been there when the artefact was found. He  _knew_ where it had been found.  _Exactly._ It had been at the back of a stone shelf, in an alcove built into the wall in the massive structure that had been labelled the 'Neolithic Cathedral'. It had been  _here_ , at the Ness of Brodgar.

He closed his eyes and pictured a plan of the site, remembering the layout of the cluster of buildings, remembering how to get to the 'cathedral'. If he could just get loose, if he could move, if he could stand, or crawl, or  _drag_ himself, if he could get out unnoticed and if he could get his bearings. Maybe he could find that building, that alcove, those shelves.

Maybe, just maybe…..the artefact might already be there.

So many 'ifs' and 'maybes'- but there it was. A possibility! There might yet be hope...

Danny's momentary flash of inspiration was interrupted by the sound of footsteps outside his building. It was of course too much to hope that he would be left alone long enough to even try to get free.

The light coming from the doorway was momentarily blocked as three figures strode straight towards Danny. He tensed fearfully, trussed and helpless as he was.

One of the three figures, still silhouetted against the light from the doorway, bent over Danny then pulled him up roughly by his hair into a seated position. He cried out in pain as his leg was jostled. A second set of hands grabbed his shoulders from behind, holding him steady.

Danny cringed, fully expecting a blow. When none came, he opened his eyes again and was astonished to see a bowl of water being held out to him. Water sounded good. He nodded in the direction of the silhouette and the bowl was pushed towards his lips. He opened them hesitantly, but then, at the last moment, caught a foul stench coming off the liquid inside. He didn't know what it was but it sure as hell wasn't water.

Danny tried to turn his head but strong hands held him in position. Suddenly a hand was back in his hair, pulling his head back. Another was on his jaw, trying to force it open. He struggled as best he could until but then someone grabbed his nose, twisting and squeezing, cutting off his air.

He held his breath as long as he could but finally he  _had_  to open his mouth. He tried to suck in some air and instead choked as the foul liquid was poured down his throat. He thrashed, trying to get free, but was held still, a hand clamping across his mouth to force it shut as the pot was removed. The hold on his nose was still rock solid and finally, finally he had to swallow to be able to breathe.

He was released, left to sink back down to the cold stone floor, coughing and spluttering, blood now dripping from his nose.

He peered up at his tormentors who were now watching him with interest.

He felt okay. Maybe after all that struggling it was just medicine, something to help his leg, he thought hopefully.

Then the first spasm hit. Fire in his belly to match the fire in his leg. He cried out, drawing his legs up towards his stomach only for his leg to remind him that was a  _bad_  idea.

His vision whited out and everything seemed to be moving, spinning around him, a vortex of fire and pain. He could see things, bad things, wrong things, things no one should ever see. Secrets and demons and forbidden places.

Then he just couldn't move. He couldn't move but he was moving. He was being dragged by his feet, flat on his back. His eyes were open again now and he could see, could watch the world go by through a pained haze, nothing seeming real and everything distorted. He was dragged out of the building into the daylight, dragged past an open yard, dragged past more men standing watching in silence. Dragged past Selena Ritchie.

There she was- the missing girl. Tied to a post by her legs, waist and neck, her long blond hair lank and dirty.

He remembered then- he had come to save her. But he was too late. She wasn't screaming and she should have been screaming because a big, ugly, black crow was perched on her shoulder pecking at her nose. And her eyes…her eyes were gone.

TBC


	6. Chapter 6

CHAPTER 6

Steve's eyes tracked the bright yellow coastguard helicopter as it skimmed over the low hills to the south of the dig site. He knew instantly which search grid they were scanning having memorised and approved their methodical, professional tactics. And he knew that search grid had been scanned before.

The hollow feeling that had persistently occupied the pit of his stomach since Grace's phone call intensified markedly as he realised that the expensive resources allocated to the search were now going over the same old ground again. Time was running out. At some point, not too far distant, the active search would be called off. A lump rose in his throat.

"Commander McGarrett?"

The man's voice cut sharply into his morose thoughts, making him jump. He rapidly reconstructed his mental barriers, flicking his attention back to the task at hand. "Sorry, please go on."

He had set up shop on the camping chairs outside the on-site portacabin and was in the process of re-interviewing the people who had been at the campsite the evening Danny went missing. He was painstakingly going over their official police statements with them one by one in the hope of squeezing an extra detail out here and there. He had had no luck so far. The Kirkwall officers had, yet again, proved their worth. The accounts were detailed and thorough.

He glanced down at the file in his hand to remind himself of the name of the person he was in the middle of speaking to. Detective Inspector Miller, begrudgingly helpful as ever, had provided that file. It laid out details of all the witnesses, their backgrounds and what they had seen. He should have  _known_ who he was talking to already, of course. But he had been awake for pretty much 40 hours straight and his attention span was shot. He was going to  _have_ to try to sleep soon, though the idea of allowing himself to lie in a comfortable hotel bed without knowing what the hell was happening to Danny was nauseating.

McGill. Allan McGill. That was his name. Age 52, born in Glasgow, now resident of Edinburgh. Mature student of archaeology, background in psychology. No dependants, no criminal record. Joined excavation team 1 week ago.

Steve closed his eyes for an instant, trying to ensure the information was committed to memory this time.

"Right, Allan. So let me get this right. You say you were sitting chatting with your friends at the campsite. Danny walked by your group a short distance away from you- you estimate about 30 metres away- heading south. He waved but nothing was said. Did you watch him until he was out of sight or did you turn away?"

"I guess I turned away. I didn't think anything of it, you know?" The man held Steve's questioning gaze and shrugged helplessly. "I'm sorry. So sorry. If I had known, I would have….I wish I had…"

"I know. It's OK. Hindsight is a bitch. So that was the last time you saw him?" The question was meant rhetorically, really. McGill's statement was clear on that point.

McGill hesitated for a millisecond then looked down at his feet. "I'm sorry. I really am. I wish I could help you." He looked back up at Steve then down at his clasped hands.

Steve froze, the averted eyes and evasive response making his hair stand on end. "Mr McGill? Is there something else?"

The man looked back and Steve's eyes burned into his. McGill looked away again. "I'm….just sorry. I'm….this is. I'm nervous, sorry."

Steve appraised him coldly before making a decision. "OK. That's OK. You can go for now," he said, eyes still fixed on the older man. But it wasn't OK. Because Steve had spent one hell of a lot of time with Danny and if there was one thing Danny was good at, it was reading people. And Steve was damn sure the fear and uncertainty behind those nervous eyes was way beyond what it should be. He was damn sure the man was lying.

He watched McGill scuttle back into the trench and over to the section of walling he'd been brushing clean, then pulled out his phone. He kept his gaze firmly on the Glaswegian as he dialled a familiar number.

"Chin, buddy."

_"Steve- any news?"_

Chin's voice sounded like he was right beside him. Steve shut his eyes for a moment, feeling illogically comforted by his friends quiet, strong voice. "No, nothing yet. Listen Chin, I need the results of the deep background checks. Have you got through everyone yet?"

_"Almost. Anyone in particular?"_

"Allan McGill. One of the students."

" _Okay."_ There was a pause and Steve could almost see Chin's fingers dancing across their tech table with a practiced expertise.

 _"Right._   _Allan McGill. Career academic, formerly lectured in psychology at Glasgow University, specialising in parapsychology and the paranormal. His later work was widely refuted by the academic community and he quit in 2009. He started a degree in archaeology at Edinburgh in 2013. There's no record of what he did between times, other than that he rented a flat in Edinburgh for the whole period. I can't find records of employment or any applications for state benefits between 2009 and 2013."_

"OK. So we have a question mark over his background. Good."

" _You think he had something to do with Danny?"_

"I don't know, Chin. But I'm damn sure he's lying about something. I  _need…_ I really need  _something,_ Chin. I've got to find him and right now we've got nothing."

" _I know…. Listen, we've been working through the satellite imagery of Orkney your contact sourced for me. Nothing new yet but we've not finished. I'll stay in touch…. How you holding up, brah_?"

Steve found he didn't know how to answer that. He put a hand to his forehead, rubbing at it wearily, trying to find the right words.

Chin read the silence and didn't push him. " _Steve, Kono and I can be on the next flight, you know that, right_?"

"I know. Thanks, brah, I appreciate it. I'll let you know, okay?"

" _Yeah, take care Steve. And give Grace a hug from us._ "

Steve hung up, glaring intensely in McGill's direction.

The older man sensed eyes on him and glanced up, looking down again abruptly when he saw Steve's steely expression and trying to make himself look as small and as busy as possible.

Steve's lip curled, adrenaline starting to rise. The man's body language said it all. And Steve was going to find out what he was hiding if he had to beat it out of him.

….

He could see and he could hear, but everything seemed detached, like it was happening to someone else. He could see his body but he couldn't feel his body, he couldn't move. It was as though it  _belonged_  to someone else.

He was a passenger on a journey he hadn't chosen to take, the destination unknown.

And the dark things, the bad things around him, taunted. They were there but not there, writhing in the darkness and flashing iridescent in the light. Cold, dead eyes stared at him. Long blond hair grew inexplicably, pursuing him and wrapping around him, squeezing mercilessly until every bone in his body was crushed. Great black birds came at him, gouging and tearing flesh.

He only knew fear.

When feeling returned it did so cruelly, nerves reawakening as though on fire, searing jolts of electricity traversing his body. He cried out pitifully.

When it was over, he lay panting, spent. The pain receded slowly until it was concentrated in his gut and his leg, which was ablaze.

His mind felt splintered. Facts floated beyond his reach.

He focused on a golden shape on the ground in front of him. He stared at the shiny metal surface as he spat weakly, trying to purge his mouth of mud and blood. He  _knew_  the thing. It belonged to him, had been taken from him. As he acknowledged that fact, another slipped into place beside it and he grasped onto it, mumbling it out loud.

"Danny. Danny. My name is Danny."

….

Steve was impressed with his own restraint. There was nothing he had wanted to do more than drag McGill back out of the excavation trench and pound his head until his secrets came out, until Danny was _found_. God, he was missing him!

But it was the little voice in his head that had an unmistakable Jersey accent that had jumped in to stop him fulfilling his violent desires. " _Admissible_ evidence Steve, you've gotta follow due process or the bad guy walks  _every_  time." Ordinarily he did try to do things the right way. Well, some of the time at least. But this was a different country and, here, he had no idea what 'due process' actually was.

So he had called for help. And Miller hadn't hesitated to act when Steve had called him to report his suspicion. "We'll have to drum up some likely offence to detain him for- you need more than a hunch a guy is lying before you can detain them for interview here. If you're as sure as you say, we need to put the pressure on him so we'll have to do just that. Don't worry, we'll think of something. Play the system."

Steve was starting to like Miller, just a little bit.

So he had stood on the side lines, flexing his hands into fists repeatedly and breathing fast through flaring nostrils as he waited, watching local uniform officers give a practical demonstration of Scottish due process as they detained McGill (under Section 14 of the Criminal Procedure (Scotland) Act of 1995, no less) then cautioned him before diligently loading him into a car and setting off for Kirkwall Police Station.

Steve followed in his hire car, driving too close.

Miller had met them in the prisoner processing area at the police station and pulled Steve to one side. "Right, tell me everything. You can sit in on the interview but I'm leading." Steve had opened his mouth to argue but Miller jumped back in first. "It's the right way to do it, McGarrett. You're so far out of your jurisdiction it isn't even funny. I shouldn't even let you corroborate the interview but I'm going to. Be happy with that."

Steve nodded curtly, following obediently behind Miller as he strode towards an interview room.

'Happy' was very very far from what Steve was. Completely exhausted, yes. Increasingly terrified for Danny as time went by, yes. Repeatedly shutting out images of what might have happened- even  _be_ happening to his partner, yes. The more tired he became, the harder it was to stop himself wondering. Speculating. Was Danny hurt? Was he  _dead._ Had he suffered? What if he was suffering right then? Maybe even close by, begging for help but alone, afraid.

The errant lump rose in his throat again and he blinked several times, shaking his head to try to regain his focus, before following Miller into the interview room to await the arrival of McGill with his uniformed escort.

…

An hour later and Steve was as close to losing it as he could ever remember being without  _actually_ losing it.

"Nothing, I don't know anything, I don't know how many times I have to say it!" McGill whined, sincere, eyes looking beseechingly first towards Miller then Steve himself. "You have to believe me!"

Steve glared at the man across the interview room table, eyes taking in the sweating brow, the red face, the shaking hands. He was scared, there was no doubting that. The man was small, around Danny's height, but his slender frame and stooped posture made him seem many times smaller. His dark, unkempt hair was slicked back roughly with what Steve suspected was natural grease rather than any off-the-shelf product. His dark eyes flicked around, nervous.

"Well  _I_  know something. I know you're lying. Badly." Miller's voice was strained with suppressed anger. He had tried every interview trick in the book and McGill was just not budging.

McGill broke then, literally, with a sob. He looked away scrubbing roughly at his eyes. "I'm sorry, I wish I could help. I really do."

Miller sighed, slumping back in his chair, seemingly defeated. Steve turned to look at him in disbelief, but stopped when Miller met his eye. The Orcadian's expression was steely and ruthless. He nodded once, almost imperceptibly. "How about I go get us a cup of tea." He said, eyes not leaving Steve's. It seemed Miller was almost as wound up as Steve.

Steve nodded back, almost salivating in anticipation of what he  _hoped_  might be about to happen.

"Right, interview suspended, 1845 hours." Miller clicked off the camcorder they were using to record the interview. He stood, turned to Steve then glanced up at the CCTV camera in the corner of the room. He held up a hand to Steve, fingers spread wide.  _5 minutes. Give me 5 minutes to switch off the cameras._

Steve watched him exit. He was starting to like Miller a lot.

Steve sat quietly for the allocated time. He watched McGill who squirmed under his gaze. Then, carefully checking his watch, he took a deep breath and  _growled_  with aggression.

McGill looked up in horror just in time to see Steve jump to his feet, lean across the table and grab him by the front of his shirt.

"Enough!" Steve spat in a furious whisper, "I've listened to enough of this bullshit, McGill. Don't underestimate what Danny Williams means to me. I will quite literally do  _anything_ to find him. You got it?"

"A-are you threatening me?" McGill looked fearfully towards the door and Steve grinned wolfishly, damn sure Miller would be very carefully taking his sweet time fetching the tea.

"You better believe it." Steve hissed. "Now tell me what you did to Danny or I'll start breaking your fucking fingers."

"N…no! You….won't. You can't! You're a police officer!" Fear and indignant disbelief did battle in the prisoner's tone.

"Yeah, I am." Steve moved his face even closer to McGill's, their noses nearly touching. "But I'm a police officer in Hawaii, not Scotland. And this is how we do it in Hawaii. Don't mistake me for Miller you piece of shit. See, Danny is my partner and we have this good cop/crazy cop routine going. And you should be fucking wishing he was here because guess which one I am."

"But you'll get in trouble" the panicked voice was barely a whisper.

"Are you listening to me? I have to get Danny back. Nothing. Else. Matters. When Miller gets back you talk or you and I- we're going to have a problem. Understood?"

MCGill nodded mutely, eyes bulging with fear.

Steve released him and sat back down slowly, never once shifting his furious glare from McGill.

Miller miraculously appeared back in the room at that moment. His timing was so perfect Steve had no doubt he had been waiting outside the door.

"Sorry, all out of tea." He proclaimed with a grin. "Now, where were we?" He flicked the camcorder back on. "Interview resumed 1856 hours. DI Miller and Lieutenant Commander McGarrett from Hawaii's 5-0 task force present. Now, Mr McGill, has your memory improved any during our short recess? What can you tell me about the whereabouts of Daniel Williams and Selena Ritchie?"

"Okay, there….there is s-something." He stammered, looking at Steve. "It's just I know you won't believe it because who the hell would and you'll just think I'm crazy and lying and I…I don't know if it will really help. No one will believe it. " He looked from one officer to the other, his eyes pleading.

"Try us." Miller's tone was cold.

"O-okay. Well. Well I used to lecture psychology, you know? And my main area of interest was para-psychology. It gave me a certain amount of freedom to research evidence that might prove or disprove the validity of certain paranormal phenomena. I mean like psychic abilities, telekinesis. Teleportation. That kind of thing."

"Are you trying to take the piss out of me, because I would  _not_ advise that." Miller growled.

"Please, please let me finish. I need….I  _should_  tell you. One thing I looked at was this group of three symbols that appeared over and over in places far removed in place and time….they appear here in Orkney on Neolithic sites, I found identical examples on Mayan temples in South America, amongst ten thousand year old cave paintings in Australia and in an underground World War 1 ammo store in southern France. Then…then this scroll was found by archaeologists working around the Dead Sea. They thought it was something biblical, but the symbols were on it. I…I managed to translate it. It took _years_  but it…it explained it all. It listed what you needed to do….." he tailed off, now panting nervously.

"What you needed to do? To do what, McGill?"

McGill stopped, mouth opening and closing, goldfish-like.

"To. Do. What?" spat Miller.

McGill shook his head, as if in denial of the words that were about to come out of his mouth. "To travel in time."

There was a stony silence, both officers staring at McGill incredulously.

"I know, I know. And I published papers about it at the time that made me the laughing stock of the academic community. I dropped out, travelled the world to look for more, to find the artefacts the scroll described. I decided to retrain in archaeology thinking if I knew more about ancient civilisations, if I knew how to excavate, I might have more chance of finding one. But then two weeks ago, one was found at Ness of Brodgar! I couldn't believe it! I saw it on the blog and I had to be here! I managed to get a place on the dig and I came straight away!"

"And let me guess. Was it one of the artefacts that was stolen shortly after you arrived by any chance?"

McGill's voice was a whisper. "Yes. The quartzite cube."

Miller smiled knowingly. "Interesting. And did you take it?"

"Yes. But…but not for the reason you think. It's dangerous! After what happened to Selena. Then Danny."

Miller raised his eyebrows. "And what happened to Selena and Danny, Mr McGill?"

"They. They _travelled_. Selena- her and I had been cleaning finds together and I…I really liked her. She was kind and she really listened, you know? I made the biggest mistake. I told her all about it, and about the scroll and the instructions. She laughed of course, who wouldn't. But then she tried it. I know she did because she stayed behind when everyone else went into town. She must have walked to site, back to the portacabin, while we were away to try it. She just couldn't have believed it would work. So…so, the next morning, when she had gone, we were all searching for her, checking the campsite, the site, everywhere we could think of. I went into the portacabin and it was there- the cube was lying on the floor and the words- she had written out the words you're meant say. And she was  _gone_. I  _knew_ what she had done and what had happened. I couldn't let it happen again. I took it, grabbed some other things so it would look like a theft. No one noticed they were gone until later- everyone was busy looking for Selena."

"I see. Okay, so you told Selena- as part of a casual conversation- how to travel in time. She decided to try it for a laugh. And it worked and now she's stuck…. Where? Sorry, when?" Miller deadpanned, playing along.

"I have no idea! The scroll said you fix an image in your head of the place or person you want to go to. I don't know what she thought of."

"I see! And can she get back?"

McGill shook his head. "No because the cube didn't travel with her! I don't know why. I have no idea how it's meant to work really! It was all theoretical!"

"Right. Okay. Let's move on for a minute. Danny Williams. How did he end up 'travelling'?"

"That guy, I don't know, it was like he could see through me or something, like he just knew and he poked and prodded and  _hounded_ me I guess. He just wouldn't leave me alone! So in the end I showed him what to do. That night—he went for a walk, I think he said he couldn't sleep. I went after him, told him I'd show him what I thought might have happened to Selena. I took him to the site just because that's where Selena did it. I don't know if that matters but it might. He laughed at me too, said once he'd finished playing my little game he was going to 'get Jersey on my ass' whatever the hell that means. But I told him to picture Selena, gave him what he needed and…it worked."

"So he, what, just disappeared?" Miller glanced over at Steve. Steve kept his eyes firmly on McGill. His lips were pursed into a thin line, emotions tightly contained.

"Yes! It was incredible," said McGill, suddenly animated and enthused. "I've never seen it happen before, but I was right- it really worked! There was this light, pure white. I think it started in the cube then in, like, less than a second, it filled the whole room. Danny just gasped and he was gone. The cube was left behind again."

"So…you let Danny travel in time knowing there was no way for him to get back?"

McGill looked at the ground, deflating. "I guess I thought at least Selena wouldn't be alone- at least they would be together."

"This is really interesting, McGill. So tell me, why didn't you go after Selena yourself?"

He stared dumbly for a second. "I…I was too scared."

There was a long silence, then Miller turned to Steve. "Well, Commander McGarrett. Case closed I guess. Time travel. Don't know why we didn't think of it right away." He turned back to McGill. "Now I realise you touched on it, but please elaborate. How does this 'cube' work?"

"W-well, there are two matching symbols on it. It's the same as the symbol we use today for 'infinity'- like the number 8 on its side. Y-you hold it, touch them both at the same time, recite the incantation from the scroll and think of where you want to go. Or who you want to go to. That's it."

"That's it. But it's a one-way trip, right?"

"I didn't know that before". His tone was defensive.

Miller sighed deeply. "Commander, I can see you're itching to interject. Please, get stuck in."

It was like letting an attack dog off its leash. Steve had been listening to McGill and his craziness with increasing disbelief and mounting fury. Now it all spilled over. He jumped to his feet so fast his chair clattered over backwards, reached across the desk and grabbed McGill by his shirt again with one big hand. He yanked him across the desk, pulling him off his feet and bringing them face-to-face.

He face was brick red with fury, teeth gritted and bared. "I've had enough of this bullshit. Shall I tell you what I think?" he spat. "You stole those artefacts. Selena Ritchie found out. You did something to her. Then Danny Williams worked it out. You did something to him, too. I think you killed them, I really do, but I really really hope I'm wrong. Now you're going to tell me what you did and where they are or the next body is gonna be yours."

TBC


	7. Chapter 7

CHAPTER 7

Awareness returned to Danny slowly, in fitful, disorienting waves. He was lying curled on his side in the foetal position, hands now bound in front of him. He wanted to move but he was too shaky, too weak. He occasionally opened his eyes and could see clearly for a few seconds each time before the world would spin and the demons would show themselves again, leering at him from the shadows, red eyes glowing.

Deep inside he  _knows_  it's the stuff they've made him drink doing this to his mind, he  _knows_  it's just aftershocks of the hideous trip, but it feels so  _real_. It's terrifying in fact. Between bouts of hallucinations his mind fixates on  _remembering_ the hallucinations and he shakes with fear.

Slowly,  _painfully_  slowly, the interludes of clarity lengthened. His leg hurt badly. It helped in a way- it was one thing that let him know when he was really awake. It seemed to pulsate and it felt so  _hot_. The rest of his body was cold, the kind of bone-deep cold that told him he had lain here, unmoving, for hours. The heat in his injured leg was stark in contrast. It had to be infected. If the green slime had been intended to help, it had failed miserably.

Eventually, he managed to keep his eyes open for more than a few seconds and began to take in his surroundings. He could see his hands on the dirt in front of him, bound together tightly. He could see a rope attached to his wrists, tethering him to a wooden post. He could see the wall of a drystone building behind the post, an open entrance way into it a few metres away from him.

He moved his head a little then shut his eyes, fast. There was a second post, its position mirroring that of his own on the other side of the doorway. Poor, dead Selena was there, hair and clothes filthy, face partially pecked away. He could smell her, he realised. That was one thing he  _hadn't_ hallucinated.

He groaned, feeling a deep aching pain in his gut way beyond that the toxic drink had left him with. He should have come sooner, he should have tried harder. He should have  _saved_  her. She was a just a kid, really.

Then he remembered the cube. He  _had_ to try to get home, back to Grace. He had to try to take Selena home.

Will to fight re-awakening, he looked at the wall behind him trying to orient himself. The wall was straight with a door in the centre. Straight. Only one building at Ness of Brodgar had straight sides, that he could remember at any rate- the cathedral. Surely,  _surely_ , he couldn't get that lucky. He couldn't be right beside the door into the building where the quartzite cube had been found.

He looked at the dark void of the doorway. Something moved in the darkness and he froze. The motion intensified into a swirling vortex then a snarling, disembodied face rushed at him, screaming manically. He cried out in fear, squeezing his eyes shut and pulling his arms towards him to cover his face.

"Not real. Not real. Not real," he murmured frantically.

When he dared to open his eyes again, it was gone. He turned his gaze back on the doorway with trepidation. The vortex remained, sparking and glowing. "It's. Not. Real." He spat through gritted teeth.

He tried to focus on what he  _thought_  was real, studiously blanking the craziness which persisted in the dark doorway, his breaths coming short and fast with the effort. He made his eyes follow the line of the heather rope that bound him to his post. It was attached high up, probably beyond his reach even if he managed to stand.

He had to get free. He had to brave the entrance to the cathedral. He  _had_ to try to find the artefact. He repeated those directions in his head, over and over, as he tried to move. First his feet, then his fingers, then his legs.  _Shit_ that hurt.

Slowly, slowly, his body re-awakened. He looked up at the post again, calculating, determined to  _try_. He pushed himself up onto his elbow, gasping at the distortions the sudden movement produced in his vision, like ripples in the ocean. His good leg was under him and he bent his knee so he could use it to push himself along the ground. He shuffled closer to the wall, moaning in pain as his injured leg protested mercilessly. He persisted, shuffling and turning until his back was braced against the building. He looked up the post again. He had to try to stand.

Then he heard approaching footsteps. He jerked his head sharply towards the sound, heart filling with dread.  _Not now..not yet._

From behind another building, a column of heavily armed men two a-breast marched towards him. Danny watched, helpless, as the column divided, one line of men moving to surround him to the left, one to the right, forming a semi-circle around him where he sat, back to the wall. They halted with military precision and turned towards him as one.

They had left a neat gap in the centre of their formation and now another man stepped through it, his walk lordly and arrogant. His clothes were different. His tunic was made from woven cloth but it wasn't plain brown like the others Danny had seen. It was decorated, a garish dyed pattern adorning the front. A circular shape dominated the patterns, depicted in glowing yellows and reds. It looked like the sun, Danny realised. He stared at it, mesmerised, until the colours began to move and swirl and red eyes glowed at him from within it, watching and laughing. He gasped, trying to tear his eyes away but somehow captivated.

Before he knew it, the man was in front of him.

He knelt down, glaring into Danny's eyes. His expression was ferocious, dark eyes boring into him without pity. But there was more. Danny could almost  _feel_ it. The man was scared of him.

Fancy-clothes man laid a neatly folded cloth on the ground in front of Danny, then unfolded it with hesitant fingers, as though it contained an unexploded bomb. Job done, the man pointed at the contents and barked a short sentence at Danny in his unrecognisable language.

Danny looked down. And he laughed. He couldn't help it.

Tucked neatly into a carefully constructed nest of wildflowers were Danny's 5-0 badge, his wallet and his cellphone.

The man was apparently unimpressed at Danny's reaction. He bared his teeth, just a fraction, then picked up the badge gingerly, holding the very edges. He stood and raised it high into the sky, towards the sun. He spoke loudly, as though addressing the sun itself, before he laying the badge gently back in its nest.

It was ridiculous. But even in his befuddled state, Danny got it. The objects must have looked like they had come from another planet to these people. His badge was shiny and gold in colour, decorated with an eagle and what looked like beams of sunlight. It looked good. Factor in that it was  _metal –_  metalworking hadn't been invented yet so they would have no idea how it had been made. Maybe they even thought it was magical.

Steve would have loved that one- magic badges, no cop should be without one. Danny giggled, high-pitched and out of place, before his attention snapped back to Fancy-clothes guy. The man- some kind of leader presumably- was addressing Danny again, loud and demanding. Danny blinked, confused.

His silence seemed to anger the man further. He leant forwards and shouted in Danny's face, spittle hitting his cheek. Danny opened his mouth, searching for something to say. But it was pointless. He shut it again.

Fancy-clothes guy snarled, then turned and barked an order.

Two of the men surrounding them passed their spears to their neighbours and stepped forwards, one to each side of Danny. They took hold of him, gripping his shoulders, grabbing him by the hair. A third figure appeared in view. Danny recognised this one- it was Blue Eyes himself, his youthful, beard-free face making him stand out a mile.

He was carrying a bowl. He put it in front of Danny's face and the familiar acrid smell of the liquid inside hit him.

Danny fought then, renewed fear rising in his gut. He struggling futilely against the iron grip he was held in. "No, no! Fuck you!" he tried to shout, voice coming out cracked and uneven.

Fancy-clothes man was barking questions again, gesticulating at Danny's things and shouting, louder and louder.

Danny had had enough. He snapped, yelling right back at him, furious "I. Do. Not. Understand. You. What the hell is wrong with you, you murdering bastard?!"

Fancy-clothes froze, then began to shake with rage. Apparently he was not accustomed to people answering back like that. He snapped an order, pointing at Blue Eyes, his own eyes never once leaving Danny's.

Danny held the challenging gaze for a moment, before feeling the bowl of the dreading liquid pushing at his firmly closed lips. He looked up at Blue Eyes. The cold expression he had seen when the youth had speared him was gone. The uncertainty, the hesitancy, he had shown before, all too briefly, was back. But a growl from Fancy-clothes had him moving and he pressed the bowl to Danny's lips harder. Danny tried to twist his head away, but then more hands were on his face, holding him still, pulling at his jaw.

Fancy-clothes, still glaring at Danny, took a spear from one of his men. He lifted it a little, then brought it down sharply, butt end first, onto Danny's injured leg.

It felt like he was being speared all over again, renewed pain reverberating around his body. Danny couldn't help it. He cried out and then choked as the vile liquid was poured into his open mouth.

They released him then, stepping back and watching, just like the first time. Chanting broke out amongst the assembled warriors, quiet at first but ever-building in volume.

Danny scrabbled at the dirt with his good leg, trying to back further away from them, gagging and spitting. But his back was already against the wall and he could go no further.

He knew what was coming this time, still not fully recovered from the first crazy, pain-filled trip, and it made it so much  _worse_.

Fear and adrenaline helped him fight it for a few precious moments, forced him to his feet despite his injury. He pushed himself up the wall, yanking wildly at his bonds, desperate to escape. Desperate to reach that artefact, to  _just go home_.

He fought, he fought so hard, knowing his body was about to fail him and he would be trapped inside it, unable to move, while the demons swarmed around him, taunting him, hurting him, twisted and merciless.

The chanting around him reached a crescendo and then they came, the demons. They came faster than before because this time they already knew where he was. They knew  _him._ They danced round him, chanting his name, poking and teasing and cutting and burning. And then one came at him, grabbing his face with its burning claws and forcing itself  _in._ In his eyes, his nose, his mouth, he couldn't  _breathe_.

Danny screamed and screamed, because the demon was inside his  _head_ , screeching and tearing and trying to  _control_  him. He had to get it  _out._ He tried to strike back, to hurt it, scratching and punching at his own face, desperate.

It laughed at him.

….

Steve sat perched on the edge of the big, soft bed in his pleasantly proportioned, four star hotel room complete with panoramic view of the picture postcard Kirkwall Harbour. But his surroundings, generously booked and paid for by Police Scotland, were irrelevant.

He stared straight ahead blankly, focused on nothing, hands gripping his thighs hard enough to leave bruises.

He had successfully turned McGill into a quivering wreck in the interview room before Miller had thought it prudent to send him away before he started doing actual damage to their prisoner. On camera. The Orcadian had instructed him to go and get some rest. It was still easier said than done. He was beyond exhausted, eyes bloodshot, hands shaking, but he had found every way he possibly could to procrastinate before he had finally found himself in the general vicinity of a bed.

At least they had something now. McGill had admitted to the thefts of the artefacts-that meant they could arrest him and charge him. They could keep him locked up for just a bit longer. A few hours in a cell might just help to loosen his tongue.

McGill had told them where the artefacts were- he apparently had them in a locker in Kirkwall Library- Miller had dispatched a unit to investigate.

Whilst stalking out of the police station, adrenaline still ramped up and furious fantasies of ripping McGill apart a piece at a time spinning round his mind, Steve had passed the room where the press conference had happened just the previous evening.

The chairs were gone but once more it was full of people. A search team was mustering, he realised. He had gone in, keen to keep up with progress. He stood at the back of the room as the team was briefed- it turned out they had been tasked with re-checking farm buildings near the camp site.

"It may seem like a pointless exercise," the team leader had said, "but it wouldn't be the first time someone has been injured in an accident and has eventually found their own way to shelter. It is always worth re-checking."

Looking around the room of on and off duty police officers and ordinary members of the public, all giving up their time to search for the two missing people, he had felt deeply touched. He had thanked a few individually before feeling overcome, over-emotional and at the point of tears.

Breaking down in front of a room full of people was not an option. He left, hurriedly.

So Steve had gone to find Grace, to hold her and hug her and smell her and try not to cry in front of her too, because he was so damn frustrated and so damn sorry that he hadn't found her Danno yet.

Grace and her grandmother had spent the day walking the hills with a search team. She was tired too, her bottom lip quivering with emotion. He didn't tell her about McGill, not wanting to upset her further until they  _knew._ He fully expected her to be inconsolable at the lack of progress but she had, yet again, taken his breath away.

When he had sat down beside her on the bench in the little garden behind their hotel where he had found her, lost in thought, she had hugged him tightly. After a long moment she had drawn back and put a hand on his chin, pulling his face towards hers. She had looked deep into his bloodshot eyes and smiled sadly. "I love you Uncle Steve. I know you'll find him. You just need more time. You'll do it, I know you will. But Danno would want me to look out for you too. You need to sleep now, okay?"

He had laughed then, in shocked disbelief. He had gone to comfort her but it was her that was providing comfort for him, her brown eyes swimming with warm compassion.

Danny had so much to be proud of.

So now there Steve was, alone on his bed, everyone around him and every bone in his body telling him to sleep.

He felt a bottomless pit of grief tugging at him, trying to draw him into its depths. He so wanted to believe Danny was alive, but now he was as good as sure Allan McGill had done something bad to him. It seemed most likely Danny had uncovered something incriminating about the disappearance of Selena and had been taken to keep him quiet. And by the same logic, without a doubt the sensible move would have been to dispose of him as fast as possible, to leave no witnesses behind.

It seemed ridiculous, though, the idea of that weaselly little man managing to hurt Danny. His partner was tough and had kicked the asses of men way bigger than himself. He should have been able to pound McGill into the ground blindfolded with one hand tied behind his back.

McGill must have taken him by surprise. If that had happened…

If that had happened, Steve would see that justice was done. And he would find Danno and return him to Grace so she would at least have a graveside to mourn at. He knew it helped him, having a place to visit where he could feel close to his father.

An image of Gracie holding a bunch of flowers and weeping silently at Danny's graveside came to him like a punch to the gut and his face twisted in pain. He pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes and gritted his teeth, trying desperately to push the grief down again.

No. This couldn't be the end. There had to be another answer. Something less obvious. The spurned archaeologist? But her motive was weak and her background was clean. A simple accident? Possible but he should have been found during the searches, dead or alive. Unless he had been near the sea and it had taken his body, of course.

Steve thought of McGill and his nervous, almost apologetic ramblings about time travel. He snorted. No…just no.

He squeezed his eyes shut, trying not to think about Danny anymore because it just hurt too much. But it was impossible.

He pulled his phone out of his pocket and dialled a familiar number, waiting for the answering service to kick in.

"Hi Danny, it's Steve again…I just wanted to let you know we've got everyone out there looking- police, coastguard, the locals have been out on foot too. We're gonna find you, OK? And Gracie's fine, she's with her Grandmother- who is so not as bad as you made out, by the way. Grace is one brave kid, Danny. She misses you." He ran a hand down his face. " _I_  miss you. And I'm  _not_ giving up. Just….just hang on, OK partner? I  _will_ find you. I promise." His voice broke on the last word and he hung up abruptly, throwing his phone down on the bed.

Steve flopped back onto the bed, hands covering his face again. He had been consciously compartmentalizing the counter-productive feelings of worry, frustration, fear and, worst of all, loss, for so long. Now those carefully suppressed sentiments hit him like a freight train. Returning home without Grace's Danno, without his own best friend, would be so catastrophic it might just finish him.

A loud sob slipped out, then another. Then the dam broke.

Exhausted and alone, he wept for Danny, for Grace, for himself.

TBC


	8. Chapter 8

CHAPTER 8

It seemed impossible but it was even harder this time, pulling himself back from hell.

Some feelings were familiar. It took  _so_  long before his body began to respond again, before he could move. He was trembling and couldn't seem to stop. His leg hurt, worse than before if that was even possible. The infection was no doubt taking hold. He felt feverish too. That was new.

What was also new was the persistence of the hallucinations. This time, they weren't retreating into the shadows. They stayed there with him, grinning and poking, even though the fog in his head seemed to be clearing. He tried to fight through it, to  _know_  again what was real and what was not. But the one in his head disagreed. It laughed at him and whispered that they  _are_  real.

Then he remembered that he hadn't believe in time travel before, but that had turned out to be real. He started to think maybe his demon was right.

The bounds of reality were blurring. Facts that were once set in stone in his mind became liquid, flowing out between his fingers when he tried to grab them, keep hold of them. They ebbed and flowed, outwith his control.

He heard hurried footsteps and opened his eyes in fear, anticipating the worst.

It was Blue Eyes again, carrying another bowl.

"No" Danny rasped, trying to scrabble backwards away from him as he approached, but hitting the wall immediately. Then he saw the nervous glances the youth was casting behind himself. He was alone. He wasn't meant to be there.

Blue Eyes knelt, smiling gently, and held the bowl out for Danny. He nodded encouragingly, waiting patiently as Danny pushed himself shakily up on one elbow.

Hesitant, Danny moved his face towards it, eyes never leaving those of the youth. He inhaled cautiously, then stared at the liquid inside. It was water! He looked back up at Blue Eyes in disbelief. The youth smiled again, holding the bowl to Danny's trembling lips and tipping it slightly.

Danny drank deeply, the cool liquid soothing his raw throat. When it was gone he sagged back down to the ground, breathing deeply. His mind seemed a touch clearer.

His own demon smiled silently. He could tell it was pleased too and that made him relax, just a bit.

Danny felt a hand touch his fingers and he jumped, having forgotten momentarily about Blue Eyes. He looked at the sorrow and fear in his eyes and felt pity for the boy. He could only be 14 or 15, even younger than Danny had first thought.

Danny realised the boy was pressing something into his hand and he looked down. It was his badge! Danny looked at him, confused. The earnest sincerity in those bright eyes left Danny in no doubt that the youth thought he was helping him. Like if he had his badge he could save himself.

He laughed, thinking he wished his badge really did have magical powers, but then felt bad because it really wasn't the boy's fault. He shook his head sadly, looking at the boy, hoping to communicate something along the lines of 'thank you but this won't help me'.

Blue Eyes got it. He frowned, looking thoughtful for a moment, then smiled again. He turned round and checked anxiously behind himself, then shoved a hand under a layer of woven cloth and pulled out a tiny object. He dropped it into Danny's hand beside the badge. Danny squinted, trying to focus on it.

It was a flint blade. It was a rich toffee-colour, about the size of a razor blade. And almost as sharp.

Danny stared at it in astonishment.

When he looked up to smile his thanks at Blue Eyes, the boy had already gone.

Heart beating wildly at the sudden opportunity presented to him, he started to cut through the heather rope. It was a laborious process. His numb fingers felt like they belonged to somebody else and he kept dropping the blade. After just a short while he had to stop for a break.

His demon growled, whispering that he was weak, useless, lazy. As though sensing its anger, the others began to emerge again, watching from the whirling shadows, ready to attack.

But he had hope now. He breathed hard and fast, in through his nose, out through his mouth, refusing to let his fears grow this time, refused to give in and curl up to hide from them. He laughed, forced and deliberate, because they were  _not_ real. Not real. Not real. Not real.

"Real" came the whispered voice in his head.

"No!" he argued back, then had to bite his tongue to keep from crying out when the whole world began to spin and pulsate again, his nerve endings screaming like they were on fire.

"Real!" insisted the voice.

Danny pushed his head back against the wall, hard, then smacked his own forehead with his bound hands, trying to knock the fucking thing  _out._ He laughed again, because this was crazy, stupid, ridiculous. He had been handed the means for escape and now he was wasting his time arguing with imaginary monsters.

If Steve was there he would tear Danny a new one for not being free yet.

Spontaneously thinking of his friend re-solidified a whole mess of memories in his abused mind.

Steve. He had hardly given him a thought since the freaks who had captured him started pouring the demon drink down him. He knew Steve would be looking after Grace, he trusted the man completely on that. On everything in fact. Steve would be looking for him too, he was sure. He would probably kill Allan McGill. He would see through his act and not believe his crazy story, just like Danny had. But the poor guy had been right all along. He was an idiot with no social skills whatsoever but he was dead right about Selena, about the artefact.

Danny wished he could tell Steve what had happened. Wished there was some way to let him know.

He looked down at his badge, then looked around him. He barked out an incredulous laugh.

He knew how to do it.

…..

Steve jerked awake, panting wildly, torn from the throes of a nightmare about which he could remember nothing. He stared at the ceiling, fisting his covers of his bed and trying to calm down.

Then he realised what had woken him- his phone was ringing.

He felt around for it and, realising it must have fallen onto the floor, reached down and picked it up. He stabbed 'Answer'.

"McGarrett" he rasped.

"Commander, it's Abby. From the dig?" came the familiar smooth tone.

"Abby." He pushed himself up so he was sitting against the headboard of the bed and ran a hand down his face, trying to clear his mind of the lingering memories of nameless fear from his nightmare. "What can I do for you?"

There was a pause. Steve frowned. "Abby? Are you there?"

"Sorry Commander. It's just… Listen, can you come to the site please? We've found something and…. Well, I just can't explain it. I need you to see it."

"What is it?"

"Please just come."

He blinked, confused. "Er, okay, I'll come straight over."

He noted the time with horror. It was 9am! He had slept for 10 hours! He didn't even remember making a conscious decision to sleep. In fact, he was still dressed, boots and all. He must have passed out straight after his big emotional breakdown.

He stood, determined not to allow himself to dwell on the events of the previous night, and strode out of the door.

A mere 15 minutes later, breakfast foregone, Steve was standing in the portacabin at the Ness of Brodgar beside Professor Abby Roy, staring down at an object on the finds processing table in complete and total disbelief.

Abby was talking to him and he was trying to take in her words, trying to understand the implications of what he was seeing.

"Danny showed us it. He wanted us to know he really was a police officer when he was trying to help with the investigation. This is  _exactly_  the same. I'm sure of it. I mean there wasn't even metalworking taking place in the Neolithic here, none. Metal objects just don't come up on sites like this. How is this possible, Commander?" her voice was shaky and unsure.

"It's not." he whispered, eyes never once leaving the object.

"I am telling you that there is no way this was planted." She was indignant, now, reading his response as an accusation. "The context of discovery was secure.  _Completely_  secure. It was jammed between stones at the base of the cathedral wall. That face of the wall was sealed by collapse from one of the other structures and we've already carbon dated that collapse event to the late Neolithic. We only cleared that section of the collapse yesterday! I was right there when Paolo found the thing! There is no way that was planted. It's not possible. And anyway the condition- he's been gone for 5 days, right? How could you possibly fake that level of deterioration in five days? And  _why_?"

He didn't have an answer for her.

He couldn't stop staring at it. He reached down and picked it up, needing to touch it, needing the connection.

The rigours of time had left the object twisted and bent, corroded and discoloured. It was barely recognisable.

But he knew it. There was no doubt in his mind whatsoever.

He ran his finger over the barely discernible numbers- 7576.

It was Danny's badge.

TBC


	9. Chapter 9

CHAPTER 9

One final cut with the tiny flint blade and the last fibres of the rope securing Danny to the post fell away. His hands were trembling, he could barely feel his fingers and he'd sliced his wrists repeatedly during the painstaking process. The blood ran in congealed, sticky lines around his hands and wrists. But he'd done it- he was free! He sat for a moment, propped against the wall, his hands lying limp on his legs, eyes shut.

His feverish head seemed to spin but he couldn't afford to stop, they could come back at any moment. He had to grab his one chance of getting home, of holding his daughter again.

Mentally bracing himself, he leant forward a little to peer into the dark void of the entrance into the cathedral a few metres to his right. The darkness inside moved as though it was alive. He was claustrophobic at the best of times, but factoring monsters into a pitch black, enclosed space filled him with dread.

His demon whispered reassurance to him. It promised to protect him, help him.

He still tried to shut it out.  _Not real._  Even if it was real he didn't trust it. It had hurt him, getting in. He remembered that well. But the other shifting shapes in the shadows seemed to take heed of its presence- they no longer swooped in to tear at him. They watched, waiting, instead. That was a good thing.

He  _had_ to go in. There was no other way.

His injured leg too painful to use, he began propelling himself towards the opening with his good leg, pushing himself laboriously along the ground, pulling with his fingertips. He grunted with the effort, biting his lip to keep from crying out in pain.

He hesitated on the threshold, telling himself he needed a moment to recall the layout the archaeologists had recorded inside, to recall the location of the recessed shelves where the cube had been stored. It was a lie- in his moments of clarity, he had thought about little else for sometime now.

"Coward.  _In_!" His demon hissed, scratching its long claws down the inside of his skull by way of punishment until he grasped his head between both hands, squeezing, moaning in pain.

"Please, stop!" he groaned.

"In." Came the whispered response.

He glanced again at the darkness. It was too oppressive, the movement within was too disorienting, too confusing. He closed his eyes. If he couldn't see any of it, he could at least pretend it wasn't there. Gritting his teeth in determination he began to feel his way in.

He could feel the things inside, hissing and spitting, the air sizzling as they passed near to him. But they, too, feared his demon and they kept their distance.

He appeared to be safer now his demon was in him. Even if it wasn't real.

He dragged and shuffled his way slowly towards where he hoped the recessed alcove was- at the far right corner of the structure. He felt his way along the wall, breathing hard and sweating heavily, despite the frigid temperate within the building.

He made it to the corner. The recess was there, just as he had remembered, and the shelves. He began to feel his way along the shelves, fingers trembling. He was certain the cube wouldn't be there. There was just no way. He'd been unlucky his whole life and that was not about to stop.

It was there.

He let out an audible breath of relief and astonishment, pulled the artefact out and clutched it tightly.

The demon hissed with pleasure, pawing at the cube through Danny's own fingers. He felt its thoughts of murder and decimation. It craved new worlds, new realities to cause havoc in.

But it wasn't real. Definitely not.

"Please, please, please let this work…." Danny murmured.

"Do it!" came the whisper inside him.

He opened his eyes for a fraction of a second, hoping to see the infinity symbols, but it was too dark and too nauseating, the way the other demons were swirling round and round the cube, turning to glare at him as they passed, manic smiles splitting their faces.

He felt his way around the incised patterns, quickly identifying the two matching ones he was looking for. Squeezing his eyes shut even tighter, he fixed a picture of Grace in his mind. His beautiful, beautiful baby Grace. He opened his mouth to start the incantation.

Then, too late, he heard a footfall behind him. Before he could turn, a powerful blow to the back of his head felled him. He heard the noise of a rock clattering to the ground as he fought to remain conscious, to keep hold of the cube. It was torn from his grasp.

Strong hands grabbed him and a punch came out of the darkness, knocking him cold.

…

Inspector Miller, Professor Roy and Steve sat round the little table in the portacabin, staring at Danny's badge in disbelief.

Abby had shown them exactly where it was found and they had spoken to the student who found it. He was only 18 and had arrived in Orkney just two days earlier, from a university in Italy- there was no question of him having any sort of involvement in whatever was going on.

"So there's no way…" Miller started.

"I think we've established that." Abby snapped.

"But it's not possible."

"My God, Miller. Could McGill be telling the truth?" Steve finally voiced it, unable to put it off any longer.

"McGill? What do you mean? I thought he just admitted stealing the artefacts. Is there more?" Abby demanded.

Miller and Steve exchanged a glance.

Steve shrugged. "Abby, McGill had a whole crazy story about how Selena and Danny had disappeared because they had travelled in time. He said the quartzite cube was some kind of mystic…time machine thing, I don't know."

She laughed doubtfully. "What? That's insane!"

They all turned back to look at Danny's badge.

Miller shrugged. "How the hell else do we explain this!? It's not like McGill can have planted it if the flaming thing was dug up  _after_  he was taken to Kirkwall yesterday."

Steve frowned. "It's a weird coincidence, though, that it should turn up  _now_ , when you've been digging here for years. That bothers me."

Abby blinked a few times. "Then again, just supposing...I mean completely hypothetically...if Danny was somehow here... _then._ Well, he dug here for two weeks. He knows the site well. He knew  _exactly_ where we were working, exactly what level we were about to come down onto last time he was here. He would have  _known_  where to hide it so there would be a good chance we'd discover it  _now._ "

There was another silence, as the three intelligent adults tried to get their heads around the insane conclusion that the evidence was now thrusting them towards, kicking and screaming.

"So what do we do?" Miller sounded resigned now.

Steve's mouth fixed in a determined line. "We get McGill to show us how to do it."

"It's insane! It's fucking batshit crazy!" Miller shouted, hands shooting out to his sides.

"I agree, Miller, but what the hell else are we meant to do? Sit here not believing it and never even try? We have to take a chance. We  _have_ to. Because if this has really happened and we never fucking even try….." Steve shook his head slowly, then jumped to his feet.

"Miller- let's go. I'm going after them."

….

Danny came round choking and spluttering, copious amounts of the vile hallucinogenic broth having been poured down his throat before he was even conscious.

He fought reflexively, even as the agonising stomach spasms began to wrack his body, but they had him well pinned as always. He was on his knees, body held upright and head held still by many strong hands. This time they didn't release him and step back when the bowl was empty, they kept it coming, kept pouring it into him, bowl after bowl. They had something stuck in his mouth so he couldn't even try to clamp his jaw shut.

It appeared that his escape attempt had pissed them off.

He couldn't breathe, he was gagging. His body twisted in pain- his gut, his leg, his still-bleeding head- all demanding he give up and go down. The craziness built around him as the effects of the huge dose of liquid he had been given began to kick in, layered over the aftershocks of what he'd already had. Faces loomed, posts and corpses, doorways and portals and fire-breathing monsters swirled around and he had _no_ idea what was real and what was not. It no longer mattered.

Through tear-streaked vision he made out the entrance to the cathedral amid the confusion, beyond his tormentors. They had dragged him out of there, away from his escape. He had been so, so close and it had been torn away from him. He had done nothing wrong, he didn't deserve this.

He couldn't take it anymore.

"Kill!" hissed his demon. It span around in his mind, blinding him to everything but hate.

Danny had been pushed too far. He had lost too much, had been too scared, was in too much pain. All that was left was demon-fuelled fury.

Suddenly the pain was gone. He couldn't feel his swollen leg, his feverish body, his aching head and gut.

He managed to snatch a breath. "No!" he yelled around the fucking  _rock_  they had jammed between his teeth. "Enough!" his enraged voice mingled with that of his demon.

A primal surge of adrenaline jerked him to his feet. He shook off the clutching hands, the rock falling from his bleeding lips. He started punching, wild and uncontrolled. His demon hissed with pleasure, demanding more, filling him with strength and masking his pain and confusion. He saw blood splatter, felt bones break beneath his fists, saw people scatter away from him.

The demon howled in victory.

A war-cry behind him had him spinning around. He took a side step in time to grab the shaft of the spear that had been driven towards his back. He neatly disarmed his attacker- the fancy-clothed leader, no less, then turned the weapon back towards him, holding the flint point to his neck.

The demon screamed inside him. It wanted blood, it needed  _control_.

Danny, without warning, found himself a passenger in his own body. He could only watch as his own hands propelled the spear into Fancy-clothes' jugular, then yanked it out. The demon watched through his eyes in fascination as the man jerked and struggled his way towards inevitable death, grabbing helplessly at his throat as the blood spurted between his fingers.

The other men cried out in shock and fear, some rushing to their fallen leader's side, some grabbing at Danny. But he was too strong, now the demon fought with him. They couldn't stop him. The demon stabbed and slashed. Men fell and men ran.

Danny, stood, finally, panting and gasping. His demon retreated, relinquishing control, and he staggered, the spear falling unnoticed from his hand.  _It_  whispered to him as he looked around in shock at the bodies on the ground. Reassuring. Threatening.

The uninjured men had retreated. He saw reinforcements arriving, armed with bows and arrows. He was too dangerous now- they meant to take him from a distance.

"In" whispered the voice in his head. "Take us  _in_."

He staggered backwards towards the cathedral entrance.

He could feel the stomach spasms building again, could feel the pain from his injuries starting to reawaken. It seemed even his demon couldn't stave them off indefinitely. He knew he could go down any moment. It was inevitable. He had to get back to the artefact  _now_ , or it would be over _._

Danny weaved drunkenly back towards to the recess in the corner, sweat pouring from his brow. A sudden noise by the door made him jump- the unmistakable sound of a stone being dragged across the entrance. The light from the entrance way had only illuminated the first few feet of the building's interior, but now it was cut off completely the difference seemed vast.

It was black. They were trapped. He gasped in panic. His demon reminded him it didn't matter because their means of escape was shut in there with them. He knew that himself, he clung to that, because he felt right then like he was buried alive.

He scrambled about in the darkness, feeling desperately for the cube, driven on by the whispering voices who wanted to escape with him.

It had been placed carefully back on the shelf. He picked it up with shaking fingers. He found the infinity symbols, pressed his fingers to them, and began the incantation. He pictured his baby's face, his sweet, beautiful Gracie. He wanted to be back with her, he  _needed_ to be with her so badly it hurt.

The demons could see her too. They leered and sniffed and pawed at her.

His own demon whispered "Ours."

Danny stopped, eyes opening wide as he realised with horror the mistake he was about to make. He had almost,  _almost_ taken them to Gracie. He had almost exposed his innocent daughter to these nightmares which he had finally, finally, accepted were real. And now they were a part of him. They could  _control_  him.

"No!" he yelled, voice shaking. He dropped the cube.

The demons whirled around it, around him, eyes glowing, sizzling sparks exploding from their pulsating shapes, casting manic shadows around the pitch black building.

The voice in his head, the voices around him, hissed at him "Pick it up. Pick it up. Take us to her. Do it  _now."_

"No!" he yelled again, he felt around, finding the rock that had been used to knock him out minutes earlier. He lifted it high above his head and brought it down fast on the cube, over and over and over again until there was nothing left but dust.

He sagged to the ground, feeling the fury in his head, feeling the strength his demon had lent him drain away.

The full force of that liquid hell hit him. He dragged himself backwards until he hit the wall, propping himself up even as the pain built and his body shut down. Then he was done. He couldn't move anymore.

The demons were  _furious._ They had seen Grace and they  _wanted_  her.

They punished him. Everything burned and he would have screamed if he could but he just couldn't move. He could only watch them.

And he didn't even care. His last hope was gone. He had nothing left to fight for. He couldn't get home now. And he knew, even if it was possible, he could never go back. He would never see Grace, his family, Steve, any of the people he loved again.

He had to protect them from the devil in his head.

It was the last thing he could do for them.

TBC


	10. Chapter 10

CHAPTER 10

Steve paced up and down the narrow sidewalk, passing Miller and McGill repeatedly. A line of camera-laden tourists meandered past, carefully looking the other way and stepping into the gutter at the side of the roadway to give him a wide berth.

"Fuck's sake McGarrett. Calm down! You're making me dizzy." barked Miller.

"Well, where the hell is she?" Steve snapped back, stopping to glare at him.

Miller shrugged, slouching back against the stone wall and looking up at the clock tower of St Magnus Cathedral, towering high into the sky opposite them.

They were standing outside the big, black wooden gateway that blocked the arched entrance into Tankerness House Museum, waiting for some council employee neighbour of Miller's to turn up with a key. The place was shut on Mondays and, naturally, the very day they needed in was a Monday.

"She said she wouldn't be long, okay? When you tell someone you need to see an artefact they have on display out of hours urgently I guess it's hard to convey that it actually  _is_ urgent. Knowing Minnie, she'll be finishing her coffee or something."

Steve shook his head curtly in annoyance and resumed his pacing.

McGill watched him apprehensively.

Steve was radiating tension. A six foot unexploded bomb with a rucksack strapped very firmly to its back.

Packing the rucksack had taken some thought. In his time, Steve had packed equipment for rescue missions all over the world. Without even applying much thought, he could pack for the Arctic, for the jungle, for six months at sea. No problem, not a challenge. But what the hell do you pack to travel back in time to rescue your best friend?

It was made no easier of course, by the little voice in the back of his head saying  _This is nuts, this is an elaborate set-up, Abby and McGill are in it together and they're all having a big laugh at the stupid American who thinks he's about to travel in time. Ha fecking ha._

He had settled on a first aid kit, a pack of survival blankets, a torch, photos of Danny and Selena, high energy protein bars, water and some warm clothes.

Weapons had proved problematic. He'd asked Miller if he could borrow his firearm. The Orcadian's incredulous expression had been priceless. 'You're not in the US now, mate,' he'd said, 'Do you see a holster…? Closest firearms officers are in Inverness.'

In fact, thanks to the tight Scottish gun control laws, it had looked briefly like Steve was going to go with nothing but a few cans of CS spray and a knife. Then inspiration had struck and Miller had come striding back from the Kirkwall Police Station evidence locker bearing a sawn-off shotgun and a box of cartridges. Which was awesome. At least if Steve decided to rob any jewellery stores on his way back, he'd be set. However, it was better than nothing. He took the CS and the knife too, tucking the latter into his inside jacket pocket.

Then Steve had raced round to the hotel to see Grace while Miller was busy springing McGill from the cells on some unlikely pretext.

Steve found he was unwilling and unable to explain to her what was really happening (plus convince her he hadn't had some kind of complete mental breakdown).

Instead, Steve had hugged and kissed Gracie. "I've got a few leads to chase up. I'm going to be tied up, I don't know how long for yet. Don't worry, okay? If you need anything, you can trust Inspector Miller. Completely. If I take longer than I think I will, he'll be able to tell you why, okay?" She had nodded, big brown eyes watching him as he left, knowing full well something significant was going on but trusting him enough not to ask more right then. He'd had to look away quickly.

Finally, after what seemed like an hour (but was probably more like five minutes) Minnie Walker, a five-foot nothing fifty-something woman, stout with a no-nonsense air about her, showed up at the museum gates. She looked unimpressed at having been disturbed on her day off.

She nodded a silent acknowledgement at Miller then produced a massive iron key, more befitting some medieval castle than a museum. She opened the gate, revealing a little cobbled courtyard lined with ancient grinding stones and artistically stacked piles of whale vertebrae.

They followed her through the courtyard to a small glass door on the far side. She unlocked it in turn and stepped aside to let them in.

"It's in the Neolithic Gallery. First floor, third case on the left. I'll be in the office." She bustled off, no doubt to put the kettle on.

Steve and Miller exchanged a look, then followed her directions, Steve shoving McGill along in front of him.

The gallery proved to be a long, narrow room with high ceiling and creaky floor. The blinds were all closed and Miller flicked on the light switch inside the door as they went in, illuminating the endless rows of glass-fronted display cases.

They made their way in. McGill cast his eyes around the huge array of ancient artefacts on display, but Steve and Miller were focused instantly on the case Minnie had identified as their target.

Steve reached it in three huge strides and grabbed the handle to open it. It was locked. He turned and glared at Miller again, nostrils flared.

Miller rolled his eyes, took a deep breath and roared "Minnie! We need the case open too!"

The faint reply came drifting up the stairs, stern tone unaffected by the distance. "No! Only the curators have keys. I could try to get hold of one if you ask nicely. You'll have to be patient though, I think they were going out fishing together today."

"You have to be kidding me!" Steve ran a hand down his face, patience stretched to breaking point.

Miller covered his face with his hand for a moment. "Screw this!" He mumbled, then pulled a police baton out of the inside pocket of his jacket. He extended it with a flick of his hand.

One carefully placed blow smashed the whole front of the cabinet, the glass shattering and raining down on the floor and the artefacts inside the case.

An alarm blared instantly, almost as shrill as the screech that emanated from Minnie. They heard her thundering up the stairs. Miller marched to the gallery door and slammed it shut, grabbing a chair and wedging it under the handle.

He cast his eyes up to a CCTV camera and sighed. "You are a bad influence on me, McGarrett."

Steve contemplated him for a split second before he reached into the display cabinet and plucked out a white quartzite cube- the twin to that found at Brodgar. "You know, I think you can call me Steve now," he said with a wry smile.

Miller jogged back over. He pulled a second cube from his pocket- the one McGill had stolen, recovered by the police from Kirkwall Library. He passed it to Steve, smiling back. "OK. But you just keep right on calling me 'Miller'. Nothing personal- my first name is Erland. It's a family name, traditional Orcadian. Not that cool. Don't tell my granny I said that."

Steve looked at the two identical cubes for a moment, then turned to McGill. "You sure this is going to work?"

The smaller man was sweating and shifting around with nerves. "No. But it's the only chance you'll have of getting back. The one you use gets left behind- at least that's what happened with Selena and Danny. You need to carry the second one to get back, otherwise it's a one-way ticket."

"So you said. And you think it will transport more than one person, if we all touch the symbols at once?"

McGill shrugged. "I…I don't know. It's just an idea."

Steve shook his head, sighing deeply. "This is so awesome…." He said, tone flat. "Right, let's do it."

Steve stuffed one of the cubes deep into the front pocket of his cargo pants and pulled on his rucksack straps, ensuring they were as tight as they could possibly go. He knelt down, holding the second cube.

"You remember the incantation?" ventured McGill.

"Yes!" snapped Steve, impatient. He hesitated. "What happens if I just picture Danny before this all happened and tell him not to do it? Or picture Selena and tell  _her_  not to. Surely if this actually works there's an easier way?"

McGill shrugged yet again. "You could try. I have no idea. I don't think it's that precise. I've never found any reference to more specific ways to control the effects."

"OK. OK. Never mind. Here goes." Steve shook his head in disbelief at what he was about to attempt.

Miller grasped his shoulder for a moment. "I have no idea what I'm meant to say, but, you know….good luck. I really hope this works."

"Thanks. Me too!" Steve huffed out a nervous breath, butterflies the size of fighter jets suddenly flapping in in stomach. "Right, Danny, buddy. I guess I really will go anywhere for you."

He leant forward, fixing an image of his friend in his mind's eye. Danny, smiling in the sun, blue eyes bright, blond hair shining, watching his daughter lovingly then turning to Steve to make some light-hearted smartass comment.

Steeling himself, Steve pressed his fingers onto the infinity symbols and began to recite McGill's incantation.

As the last word passed his lips, Steve's senses went crazy. The room seemed to spin, lights flashed around him, inside him. The cube began to feel hotter and, for a fraction of a second, seemed to glow. There was a blinding flash then everything went black.

….

They hadn't dared come in after him.

Now and then, the demon yelled out ferociously, reminding them it was there and it was angry.

Before reality had completely whited out, Danny had tried briefly to block out his surroundings, to picture the people he loved one last time, picture the people he was sacrificing himself for, certain this was the end for him. But the demons had leered at the images in his head, touched their faces and hissed out the hideous things they were going to do to them, so he tucked them away in his mind and let go.

With or without the artefact, he was never going home. Sick with fever, injured and bleeding, all hope had gone. On some level he knew he was losing his mind, he was losing who he was. It just didn't matter anymore. Nothing mattered anymore. He let it happen.

He had given up.

Now he lay trapped in his black tomb with what had to be the very essence of evil all around him, intent on making him suffer horribly until he died.

He simply couldn't move. He suffered silently as the demons tore at him, as the blackness crushed him to dust while the world spun around him.

His own demon was angriest of all at their imprisonment, at Danny's failure and betrayal. It forced itself into every part of his body and burned him from the inside, then played around in his mind until he knew nothing but the demon. Until he  _was_ the demon.

And then, nothing else was real any more.

There was only pain, emptiness and hate-filled demon wrath.

TBC


	11. Chapter 11

CHAPTER 11

Steve groaned, putting a hand to his head. It was throbbing and spinning and felt like it was stuffed with cotton wool. He was having trouble forming a coherent thought. One thing was for sure, he wouldn't be drinking whatever the hell he had drunk the night before again in a hurry.

He wondered vaguely if it was a work day. He sincerely hoped not or he'd be needing to call in sick for pretty much the first time ever which would be poor form for the boss.

He had had one fucking weird dream, that was for sure. Danny was going to piss himself laughing when he heard about it. Although, Steve decided, on second thoughts it would be a mistake to tell his partner he was having fucking weird dreams about him. That would fuel weeks' worth of teasing that no doubt the rest of the team would get right on board with.

He shivered a little and reached down to pull the covers up over himself. Then frowned as he realised there weren't any. And he was fully clothed.

Apprehensive over just how much of an idiot he might have made of himself, he cracked open his eyes, shading them carefully with his hand. They felt like they'd been glued shut.

He frowned. Blue sky. Was he on his lanai? No, too cold.

Then he realised he could hear male voices. They sounded like they were a short distance away from him. They were discussing  _something_ in earnest. He didn't recognise the language. Something Germanic maybe? Not one he knew.

Something was entirely Not Right. Groaning again, he pushed himself up on one elbow.

He froze, eyes widening in shock, heart dropping into his stomach.

He was surrounded. Eight bearded men were spaced out in a circle around him. They were dressed in skins and garments fashioned from brown woven cloth. Each was armed, some with bows and arrows, some with spears. Every weapon was pointed right at him.

His fucking weird dream apparently hadn't been a dream at all. It was real. And he had just discovered the major flaw in the grand 'Rescue-Danny-and-Selena' plan. Apparently the process of time travel had a bit of a kick to it and, while his brain had been off-line, he had ended up in a pretty disadvantaged position.

Heart pounding and adrenaline ramping up to maximum, Steve forced his timeshift hangover and general state of shock rapidly to one side, switching automatically to SEAL attack mode. He shoved his hand into his jacket to draw his knife.

It was gone.

He scrabbled at his shoulder, meaning to grab his hastily-selected weaponry from his rucksack.

It wasn't there.

He frisked himself quickly, breaths coming faster, panic rising.  _Everything_  was gone. They had emptied his pockets! Not only was he unarmed, he had lost the cube- their only potential means of getting home!

He drew several deep breaths, forcing himself to keep calm. This was no different to any of the many other against-the-odds situations he had found himself in, he told himself forcefully. No different at all.

He attempted some frantic pro-active planning. He scanned around, squinting through still-blurry vision, desperately trying to identify a potential opportunity for offence, escape and evasion.

There was nothing- all the men and their weapons were too far from him for him to try to overpower one even if his body had been functioning properly, let alone in its current nauseous, wobbly state.

He would simply have to wait them out, keep his head and be ready for an opportunity to present itself to get the plan back on course.

His deeply-ingrained powers of self-control successfully quashed the panic. But his heart still pounded wildly because no matter what he told himself, this  _was_ different. And things couldn't have gone more wrong.

He thought of Danny and wondered if he had had this kind of reception. Wondered how Danny would have handled the shock of time travel and the terrifying reality of being outnumbered and alone in a strange, unfriendly land. He had to find him.

Steve looked around again. The men encircling him were grim-faced and silent. He cast his eyes beyond them, trying to locate the source of the voices.

And there, just behind the ring of men, was a second group of individuals clustered around what could only be his rucksack, entirely absorbed in pulling out the contents.

Two, deep in conversation, were passing his sawn-off shotgun between one other.

One, a younger man, just a youth really, was holding the precious quartzite cube and what looked like the photographs of Selena and Danny. He was looking over at Steve with scared eyes that were such a bright shade of blue he could see the colour even at that distance.

Steve turned his head sharply as one of the men surrounding him shouted a word with a commanding tone.

The man in question, a towering, hair-covered gargantuan who appeared to be formed entirely from deer-skin clad muscle, took a step towards him, pointing his spearhead at Steve's face. Steve tensed. If the massive man took another step, he could take a chance, make a grab for the shaft of the spear….

But he didn't.

He growled, shouted what sounded like ' _clug_ ' at him, then moved the end of his weapon up, sharply, twice.

Steve nodded curtly in understanding, rising to his feet slowly and carefully. He watched eagle-eyed for any slim chance to strike.

The men were smart. They kept their distance as they forced him to walk at spear point across the heather covered moorland, but kept close enough together that he got no opportunity to try to break through their ranks.

Steve could be patient though, Steve could play their game. And he had hope- as they marched, it dawned on him belatedly that, maybe, wherever they were taking him, they might have taken Danny and Selena too.

He was driven on across the purple-streaked heather moorland northwards, the group following the rising ground to a low ridge.

As they crossed the high ground, the land falling away below them, Steve's jaw dropped.

It was an astonishing thing, seeing the buildings at Ness of Brodgar in the distance in all their glory, not as ruinous foundations in the bottom of an excavation trench. They were huge. Monumental.

It was entirely surreal and all of a sudden Steve was strangely glad of the splitting pain in his head- it was the only thing that convinced him he really  _wasn't_  dreaming. He had  _known,_ thanks to whatever circumstances had lead Danny's badge to lie hidden in the 'cathedral' wall at Brodgar for thousands of years, that the chances were he would end up here. His plan, back when he had assumed he would have a choice about what he did after the cube had delivered him to wherever Danny might be, had been to find his way to Brodgar, to that very building, in the hope the man himself would be nearby. But all the planning in the world couldn't have lessened the impact of knowing he was actually  _there_.  _Then._ That the whole time travel thing was  _real_.

His head was spinning, nerves and apprehension rolling around in his gut.

They descended the hill, walking past the stone circle at Stenness. It was complete, of course, and hugely impressive, so different from the partial stone circle he knew, most of the stones having been destroyed by some farmer in the 1800's with a penchant for dynamite. He stared and stared, thinking he could try to describe it to Abby if he ever saw her again. She would be fascinated. Any archaeologist would be fascinated.

He realised with a start why Selena might have ended up here to begin with, why she had chosen this site and this time to travel to. She might not have believed it would really happen, but her fondest dream must have been to see the site she was excavating in its heyday.

It seemed a fair bet she would have come to regret her light-hearted choice.

They approached the narrowest part of the bridge of land between the two lochs. Looking ahead, he could no longer see the buildings at Brodgar. The huge wall that surrounded them blocked his view of the complex interior altogether now they were on the low ground beside it. The wall had to be 6 metres high! That would be virtually impossible to get over, he thought, mind hard-wired as always to tactical planning.

He could see objects spaced out around the top of the enclosure wall. He squinted, trying to make them out. The severed heads of cattle, he realised with a grimace, eyes tracing the fresh blood dripping down the stonework below them.

He remembered the things he had read through the years about ritual and sacrifice in prehistory. The theories about the bizarre, savage practices which seemed to have been commonplace thousands of years earlier had fascinated him at the time. They didn't seem nearly as captivating now it looked like he was about to get a front row seat.

As they approached the grand entrance way and the huge wooden gates swung open before them, Steve's heart pounded with apprehension.

The little procession wound its way slowly between the huge, windowless drystone buildings, the low entrances dark and unappealing.

The inside of the complex was a far cry from the friendly, tidy, organised place its vestiges had become in the year 2015. It was like something out of a horror movie. The place stank of blood, death and fear, filling him with dread and reawakening his nausea.

Between the buildings were multiple gruesome stacks of beheaded sheep and cattle in varying states of decay. The clinging stench that emanated from them forced its way in his mouth, his nose, down the back of his throat until he gagged, covering his mouth and nose with his hand.

He saw three men, obviously dead, propped against a wall positioned as though they were sitting, watching him being paraded past. The middle one was dressed in a tunic dyed with patterns in yellows and reds. He had a piece of cloth and some flowers resting on his lap and a spear propped against his shoulder, his hand secured somehow around the handle in a parody of life.

As Steve grew closer he realised there were objects tucked into the twisted nest of wilted flowers. His eyes grew wider as he recognised the items in the bowl. Danny's wallet and Danny's phone.

For a moment, Steve thought he was actually going to be sick. He had known Danny's badge had ended up here of course, he'd  _hoped_ it was the man himself who had hidden it- because that would mean Danny might still be alive, he might be able to get his friend back. But somehow seeing Danny's possessions in this horrible place filled with death… it was hellish. Their presence only served to confirm that Danny had encountered these people too. Had Danny himself made it this far? Had Danny been living this bizarre nightmare as their prisoner? Or had they simply killed him and taken his things?

'Please, please, just let him be alive' Steve thought, desperate, sweat running down his brow, now breathing hard with stress and fear.

He almost averted his eyes from yet another pile of rancid animal corpses, then gasped in shock as he made out a pair of human feet sticking out amongst the gore. He was unable to contain a meaningless noise of distress. Heart twisting in fear, he craned his neck as he was forced on by, trying frantically to see something, anything, that would tell him it wasn't Danny or Selena.

But the glimpse was fleeting. He saw nothing to reassure him and now panic was threatening to rise with avengeance.

Steve knew the layout of the building complex, of course, he had memorised it in minute detail before attempting the crazy rescue mission. He knew they were winding their way through the carnage towards the 'cathedral', towards the ritual heart of the place. And towards the building where Danny's badge had been found, carefully tucked between stones at the base of the wall just to the right of the entrance. TO where Danny himself might have been. Might  _still_ be.

He held his breath as they rounded a corner and entered the open courtyard area leading up to the massive, straight-sided building.

And there it was. He saw the'cathedral' ahead of him, its entrance blocked by an enormous, square block of stone. He saw the two posts. He saw Selena's body with its missing eyes. He saw the second post, the post which had to be right beside the place they had found Danny's badge. He saw the tangled ropes on the ground beside it, saw the dark patch on the ground. Bloodstains. Danny's blood. He just _knew_  it was. He saw it all, took it in in an instant.

Right at that moment, in that horrific place, there was only one conclusion Steve could come to and it was devastating.

Selena was dead…and the odds were that Danny was dead too.

Overwhelming rage and grief flooded him.

He attacked them, because he just couldn't stop himself, even though he knew he stood no chance against them like that. He  _threw_  himself at the closest person, trying to grab a spear he knew he could never reach. He struggled violently, kicking out and head-butting, even as he was punched to the ground. He screamed at them, called them  _murdering bastards,_ shouted Danny's name until, finally, he was dog-piled into submission.

They stayed on him and he just couldn't breathe. His face turned red and his vision swam. He barely registered the grinding noise of a heavy stone being moved as his fingers clawed convulsively into the dry dirt beneath him.

Then the pressure was gone. He drew raw gasping breaths into his lungs and jerked up onto his knees, ready to fight all over again before he could even see again.

As his vision cleared it became obvious what his captors had planned for him. In front of him was the entrance to the cathedral. The huge block of stone which had covered the doorway had been pushed to one side to reveal the dark void behind. Six men stood clustered together, hands braced against the side of the stone, blatantly poised to push it back into place.

His captors were behind him in close formation. More lined the way to the entrance in front of him, leaving him only one direction to go.

They wanted him to go in the building.

But no way, just no  _way_ , was he going to go into that dark hole, knowing full well they intended to close the entrance of behind him, wall him up inside it. The stone by the entrance was  _huge_. No way could he move that himself, no chance. There would be no way out. He didn't want to go in! He just wanted to  _kill_ them! And to find Danny, to see him one last time and  _know_ what they had done to him.

He lurched to his feet and turned to face the men behind him. They thrust their spears towards him as one, taking a step forwards with a choreographed synchronicity. He took a step back, a step closer to the doorway, then swung round again, looking for escape.

Then he frowned slightly, registering that the men closest to the entrance had their spears pointed not at him, but towards the entrance itself. He saw the fearful looks  _many_ of the men were casting towards the pitch black doorway. What the hell did they have in there?

He stared into the darkness.

Suddenly, a fierce chorus of guttural shouts rose from the men behind him and he swung back towards them. They were marching towards him, spears raised as one. No way could he take them on and hope to win. He was torn. Instinct told him to launch himself again, to try to take a couple of them out before going down in a blaze of glory. But the logical part of his mind said maybe he should try holding on just that little bit longer in the hope that he might yet get the opportunity to avenge the murders and, just maybe, try to return the bodies to those who loved them so they would at least have something to bury.

Slowly he backed towards the open doorway, undecided and still looking around himself desperately for a means of escape.

Sensing the building was right behind him now, he turned. A powerful, well-timed thrust between his shoulder blades from the butt of a spear sent him staggering forwards into the gloom.

Before he could turn back, he heard the great stone being slid back across the entrance into place, grunts marking the efforts of the many hands forcing it into place.

"No!" he yelled, jamming his hands into the receding gap and pushing against it with all his might. But to no avail. He just managed to whip his fingers out of the way before they were crushed.

Everything went black.

He was trapped.

He whirled round again, putting his back to the stone and heaving frantically.

The great monolith didn't shift a millimetre.

Steve stopped, leaning heavily against the stone, panting hard.

His eyes had been shut as he had been pushing and he opened them now, but he could see nothing. The darkness was oppressive. It seemed to close in on him. He closed his eyes again, trying not to panic.

Then there was a slight noise, not a movement, or a footfall, or a spoken word. More like something had shifted a fraction.

He froze, trying to quiet his frantic breathing and just  _listen._ But here was nothing but silence, broken only by the occasional drip, drip of water.

"Hello? Is anyone here?" he tried. "Danny?" That really would be too good to be true. Those crazy bastards probably had a wolf or something trapped in there, waiting in the darkness to rip him apart.

But he heard nothing more. He started to think he must have imagined it. His head was spinning and his body aching, the cumulative effects of his bizarre journey and the fight he had just put up against these crazy, murdering  _bastards_.

He allowed himself to sink to the ground, slumping back against the cold stone. He ran a shaky hand over his face and shivered. The inside of the building was  _freezing_. And it  _stank._ Stale, damp air seemed to cling to him.

He knew he needed to keep going, to start to feel his way around the building, try to find something to help him get the hell out of there so he could look for Danny. He had to find out who owned the legs he had seen in that pile of carcasses because his fear was that he knew exactly who they belonged to. Then again, who knew what untold horrors, how many innocent victims, the other buildings in the complex might hold.

But he was hurting, he felt sick and dizzy and his mind was filled with disjointed flashes of the things he had seen, images of death, Selena, Danny's things, Danny's blood. He needed to allow himself a time out to gather his strength and refocus.

He sat still and closed his eyes, trying to suppress shudders as the adrenaline seeped out of his body and the sorrow and the cold poured in to replace it. He bit his lip hard, unwilling to succumb to an self-indulgent emotional breakdown when he still had work to do. He sat there, hovering on the cusp of tears because everything had gone so wrong, because the hope that had been reawakened in him- the hope that Danny was alive- had been extinguished yet again.

A minute went by- a minute of complete and utter silence.

Then there was another noise.

Steve's eyes shot open, adrenaline ramping back up. There was no mistaking it this time. There was a dull, rhythmic thudding coming from the other side of the building. He wasn't alone.

"Hello? Anyone there?" His voice was full of apprehension. He felt the floor around him silently, hoping for something he could use as a weapon. There was nothing.

The thudding stopped.

Steeling his nerve, Steve decided to face the potential threat head on. He stood with difficulty, his body aching and stiff. He took a moment to find his balance then began to walk slowly, inch by inch, in the direction the noise had come from. He slid his feet along the ground to feel for unseen obstacles. He held his hands, palms out, in front of him, one reaching forward and one in closer to his chest- a defensive position, ready to fend off any attack.

He hadn't got far when the thudding noise started again, faster this time, cadence bizarrely matching the rapid beating of his own heart.

It was fucking weird and deeply unsettling. Steve's breaths came quickly, in through his nose, out through his mouth, a deliberate attempt to keep himself calm.

"Hello?" His hesitant greeting seemed foolish and out of place. It made him cringe.

A quiet whisper cut through the darkness, the voice pain-filled and furious. "No. No."

Steve's jaw dropped. He could hardly believe what he had heard! He knew that voice as well as he knew his own! "Danny? Is that you?" An astonished grin split his face, untold relief surging through him. Danny was alive!

The repetitive noise stopped abruptly. There was complete silence.

"Danno?" Steve's voice shook with excitement and disbelief. "Buddy, it's Steve! I can't believe I found you! Are you OK?"

There was no reply. Steve's face fell, realisation dawning that all was not well with his partner. Of course it wasn't. He had already known he had to be hurt. He bit his lip, fighting his instinct to storm right over to where he thought Danny was. He had no idea what state of mind he was in and he didn't want to alarm him.

"Danny? You OK?" Steve kept his tone soft and reassuring this time. "I can't see a thing but I'm coming over to you, okay? Just stay where you are."

He slid cautiously on. A familiar smell hit him- the sharp metal tang of blood. There was something else as well- an acrid, clinging aroma he couldn't identify.

Another murmur came from low down, right in front of him. "Not real, not real, not real." The words were hurried, quiet but frantic.

Steve hesitated, frowning in confusion. "Danny? What's not real? Me? Buddy, it's really me. It's Steve. You sound…are you hurt?"

"Get out of my head!" Danny  _screamed_ the words out now, the noise echoing and reverberating around the enclosed space. Steve froze altogether as his friend produced an unintelligible howl.

Steve heard the sound of rapid movement then something solid rammed into him like a freight-train.

The attack was so vicious, so unexpected, Steve had no time to react as he went crashing to the floor,  _Danny_  astride him, punching wildly and  _growling_.

Steve tried to block the blows, to grab his arms, but Danny barely seemed to register his efforts, shaking off his attempts with astonishing strength.

"Jesus, Danny stop!  _Danny_!" Steve gasped out, desperate.

The last thing he registered was a solid punch breaking through his guard, catching the side of his head.

He sagged limply to the ground.

TBC


	12. Chapter 12

CHAPTER 12

Steve lay, stunned, gasping loudly on the cold stone floor.

Danny's attack had left him badly winded and fighting to remain conscious. There was blood running down his face from his lip, his temple, his nose and he couldn't even raise a hand to swipe at it.

But, as fast as he had struck, Danny was gone. As the ringing in Steve's ears gradually subsided he realised he could hear him, panting and mumbling incoherently, moving about erratically at the opposite end of the building.

Steve felt like he was in shock, so unexpected was the attack. He had anticipated a whole host of potential problems given the infinite unknowns involved in the rescue attempt, but this…. His heart thudded in fear. Not for himself, but for Danny. What the hell had they done to him?

Even as he lay, as yet unable to move, his mind was racing, trying desperately to rationalise what had just happened.

Danny would  _never_ attack Steve like that if he was in his right mind. That was a given. But Danny had shown no sign whatsoever of recognising him. A whole mess of things could account for that. It was dark- no way could he  _see_  him, plus he wouldn't have been expecting him. Of course he had to have known Steve would  _try_ to find him, but this wasn't exactly a simple hop over a border into a random foreign country.

Then there were the big question marks...he was  _sure_  Danny was injured. He had seen the bloodstains outside. He had  _smelled_  blood on his partner. Loss of blood, maybe a head injury... he could be confused. It was understandable that he might not believe he was really hearing Steve's voice. He might even have  _amnesia_  and, boy, would that make things more complicated.

Steve opened his eyes and stared up at the  _nothing_ he could see. It was horrible. In fact, he realised, being shut in like this had to be like hell for Danny anyway, whether he was seriously injured or not. Thanks to his claustrophobia he would feel panicky, vulnerable. Scared. Especially after everything else- the shock of realising he had actually travelled in time, the horror of the place outside. Thinking he'd never get home again. God, never see Grace again! That alone could push him over the edge. And if he'd seen whatever had happened to Selena… Danny would take that hard, most likely blame himself.

The more he thought about it, the more he realised he shouldn't have been surprised that Danny didn't react to him as he'd expected. His friend was in a bad place in every sense of the word. His heart ached for him.

He had to try to get through to Danny, to make him realise that at least he wasn't alone any more, to convince him to let Steve assess his injuries and see if he could help. But he plainly needed to tread carefully.

He was forced to allow himself a few minutes to recover before he could attempt to move. Danny had really rung his bell.

His head finally stopped spinning and Steve pushed himself gingerly to his feet, moving as quietly as he could. He found his balance and dropped slightly, adopting a defensive posture.

If Danny didn't believe he was real, if he attacked again, Steve wanted to be ready.

He had no intention of fighting back- he wouldn't hurt Danny- but if he had to he would  _restrain_ him, stop him hurting either one of them.

He needed to get Danny to hear him out. He would say whatever he had to get through to him. He was confident he could. In spite of appearing superficially mismatched, Steve and Danny were as close as brothers. He didn't think there was  _anyone_  who knew Danny as well as he did. Rachel, maybe once. Matty, a long time ago. But between estrangement and loss, Steve had been left unrivalled as Danny's closest confidante. He knew his friend inside out and he  _would_ convince him he was who he said he was. Unless Danny really did have amnesia of course in which case...in which case he'd just have to convince him he meant no harm anyway, then worry about the rest afterwards.

He had to assume it would work. It  _would_  work. It  _had_  to. He just had to get Danny to listen.

He took a deep breath. "Danno. It's Steve. I've come to help you."

He paused, listening, but he heard nothing but the sound of his own heart thudding rapidly in his chest.

Danny had stopped shifting around though. He had to be listening too. That was good. Maybe he'd had time to process things a little better, to let himself consider the possibility that it might really be Steve in there with him.

Steve cleared his throat. He chose his words carefully, trying to be clear and succinct. "Danno, listen to me. I used the cube to get here, same as you. Gracie called me when you disappeared and I came to help. I got the story out of McGill. I didn't believe him, but then they found your badge at the site. We  _knew_ it was true then. I  _had_  to come after you. I'm here to try to help. There might be a way back, buddy. Back to Grace."

There was still no response, but Danny hadn't tried to attack him- that was progress. Bolstered, he decided to push a little harder.

"Can I come over to you? I'm worried about you, partner. I know you're injured. I'm gonna walk over, okay? Nice and slow. You know me, I'd never do anything to hurt you. You  _know_ that. I've got your back, right? I just want to check you out, see where you're hurt. Okay?"

Silence.

Steve blew out a calming breath and began to shuffle towards the last place he had heard Danny moving around. He estimated the distance he was moving as he went. He was pretty sure he was almost at the opposite wall of the building. He frowned, pausing for a moment. Danny couldn't be far away.

He reached a hand out carefully, then almost jumped when it made contact with the wall straight away. He felt a short way along the wall in each direction, then along the flagstone floor in case Danny had succumbed to his injuries and gone down.

Nothing.

Danny had shifted, silently. Steve had the sudden, unnerving feeling that he was being hunted. He froze, listening intently.

Steve heard nothing but he felt the merest hint of warm breath on his neck. His heart dropped like a stone. He turned sharply, only to double over in agony as Danny drove a fist into his gut. He realised in the nick of time that Danny would follow up with a knock-out punch to the face and managed to yank his head backwards out of the way. He felt the air move as the anticipated strike missed him by millimetres. He really did know his friend well. It wasn't surprising- they had fought side by side a hundred times. This was horribly different.

It was almost as though Danny had become another person altogether.

Steve felt a terrible sense of deja vu, but this time he at least had an advantage, if you could call it an advantage. He  _knew_ Danny  _meant it._  Steve had to strike back  _fast_ and try to get him under control before Danny had a chance to come at him again.

Without hesitation, Steve mentally blocked out the pain in his gut and launched himself towards Danny in a low tackle, fast and hard, knocking the legs out from under him.

The result was entirely unexpected. Danny cried out in pain, raw and desperate, curling up and clutching at his thigh as he hit the ground.

Steve clocked his reaction with horror, realising instantly something significant was amiss with his legs. He had intended to keep a tight hold after the tackle, but now let him go as though he was electrified. He rolled to the side then scrambled to try to grab a different part of Danny's body. He latched onto an arm. "Shit! Danny, I'm sorry. Please, please just  _stop._ I'm trying to help," he hissed out as he moved.

Danny took no heed. Apparently shaking off the impact of the tackle, he attempted to pull his arm free, shoving and punching at Steve with his free hand. But now there was a difference. it seemed that wind had been knocked out of his sails. Whatever the tackle had done to him, the incredible strength Danny had displayed when he'd first attacked like an unstoppable whirlwind was gone.

He still fought, still tried to wrench his arm out of Steve's grip, but Steve managed to keep his hand clamped on and, this time, successfully blocked Danny's follow-up punches with his other arm.

"No! Let me help you!" Steve grunted.

Danny gave up his attempts to get free and tried to get to his feet instead. He made it to his knees, simply pulling Steve along with him.

But then things shifted again. Danny stopped his efforts suddenly, freezing. A shudder ran through his body and he swayed precariously to one side.

Steve grabbed the opportunity, throwing his arms around Danny from behind, pinning the smaller man's arms to his sides in a tight bear hug.

Danny growled and tried to struggle free. He threw himself to the ground, trying to twist around and kick out, struggling like a wild thing.

Steve just held on, following him to the ground then trying to keep him there, arms and legs wrapped around him, hands joined over his partner's chest, lying behind him and just trying to keep him restrained. If he could at least get Danny to calm down he might start to understand Steve meant him no harm. That would be a victory of sorts. A small one, but Steve would take it right then.

And now Steve knew more about what was going on. For all he couldn't do anything but hold on for grim death, he was finally learning more about Danny's condition...and it worried the hell out of him.

Steve could feel Danny's heart beating, fast and erratic. He was panting raggedly. The heat was rolling off him in waves- he was soaked in sweat even though the room was cold and he appeared to be dressed only in T-shirt and underwear. He was plainly sick. Delirious, perhaps. Whether from illness or infection he didn't know- his reaction to Steve's contact with his legs could be an indication of the latter.

Then there was that unfamiliar acrid smell. It clung to Danny, seemed to ooze from his pores, and, as Steve held on to him, it started to make his eyes water. In fact, it was making him feel quite light-headed- it  _had_ to be affecting Danny too.. He wasn't sure what it could be- could Danny have been drugged? Even poisoned?

His apparent confusion and mis-placed aggression became even easier to understand. Whatever was going on with him, how on earth he could have fought the way he had when he appeared to be so unwell was beyond Steve.

Restraining his partner when he was plainly so sick felt so wrong. It felt  _brutal_  and it  _hurt_  Steve to his very core to do it... but he couldn't see any other way. There  _was_  no other way. He pushed his guilt to the back of his mind, squeezing his eyes shut, and rested his forehead against the back of Danny's broad shoulders.

"You're okay, buddy. I've got you. Just relax, I've got you." Steve murmured, voice trembling with a combination of effort and emotion.

Danny seemed to be weakening steadily in Steve's arms. His struggles gradually became more intermittent. It was no less alarming than when he had been combative- at least then he had seemed strong. Now it seemed as though he was melting away, his breath was coming in ever quieter rasping sobs. He mumbled occasionally, making no sense. Steve kept speaking to him, murmuring quiet words of reassurance and hoping that they might just get through.

Finally feeling the last of the resistance drain from his partner, Steve hesitantly released his death-grip, freeing a hand to raise to Danny's feverish brow. He was burning up. He stroked his partner's dank hair, pulling it back out of his eyes. Danny didn't react. He appeared to have passed out. Steve had no idea whether to be grateful or terrified.

Steve gently unlocked his legs from around Danny's and eased himself up into a kneeling position. Supporting Danny with a hand cradled beneath the nape of his neck, he carefully rolled him onto his back before lowering his head to the ground.

Steve began running his hands over Danny's body, examining him for injuries with a practiced ease. He had carried out top-to-toe injury surveys many a time during his military and police career, but he had never done it blind before. He certainly had never done it on his best friend before.

There was an extensive swollen area on the back of Danny's head, shallow cuts across it which felt fresh, still bleeding sluggishly. Steve felt a stab of guilt, thinking he had caused them during the struggle. Then a sick realisation hit him- he remembered the dull repetitive thudding noise he had heard. Could Danny have been hitting his own head against the wall? The very thought made his heart twist. Steve squeezed his eyes shut again for a moment.

He pressed on with his methodical check, not allowing himself to think too much. He felt the scratches, cuts and bruises on Danny's face, his torn lips. He smiled weakly at the scruffy beginnings of a beard. Danny's arms were heavily bruised, his wrists swollen and cut- they had clearly been tied together. His torso didn't seem too bad, thank goodness.

Then he reached the hot, swollen thigh, the oozing wound. He hissed through his teeth, then touched it gently before raised his fingers to his nose, grimacing at the stench.

Steve could feel a line of risen flesh running around Danny's thigh just above the wound and realised he must have had a tourniquet applied at some point. It must have been a significant injury to begin with. A stab wound perhaps? The wound was badly infected, that was for sure. Sepsis was a distinct threat and could well already have set in. Danny certainly had the early symptoms.

Steve completed his examination, shaking his head in horror at his friend's condition. Danny needed medical attention to give him a fighting chance of surviving. He needed IV antibiotics, fast- that was the priority. His injuries needed cleaned. He needed saline to rehydrate him. He needed painkillers. And most likely a sedative until they could work out what was going on with his state of mind. With luck, if the infection was brought under control and whatever the source of the foul stench was had a chance to wear off, Danny should be calmer, hopefully more aware.

But Steve couldn't do a blessed thing for him. He put a trembling hand over his face.

He thought longingly of the first aid kit in his confiscated rucksack. It prompted him to get to his feet and spend long minutes feeling his way around the building in the hope of finding  _something. Anything_ that might help. Another way out. A weak point in the wall. Water. Anything. He found the shelves in the corner of the building. They were empty. There was just nothing. Not a single thing that could help them. He heaved against the stone blocking the entrance again, then smacked his hand against it repeatedly, shouting for help. To whom, he didn't know.

Finally, he felt his way back to Danny, hand finding its way anxiously to the pulse point in his neck.

Danny didn't stir. He was still unconscious. Whether it was because their fight had taken a lot out of him and his body had shut down to recover, or whether he was so sick he was now lapsing into a coma, there was no way of knowing. He might wake up and try to fight Steve off again at any moment. He might  _never_ wake up.

Steve sank down and sat, back to the wall. He eased an arm under Danny's neck and pulled his head and shoulders gently onto his lap, keeping his arms around him.

He felt exhausted and beaten. He began to tremble. His naïve attempt at a rescue mission had been a complete fuck-up from start to finish. Captured before he even knew where he was, his kit taken, their means of escape gone. Not that he even knew if it would have worked anyway- they only knew for sure that the artefact could transport one person at a time.

And the people he came to rescue? One dead, one virtually feral and terrifyingly unwell. He hadn't even found Danny by himself- he'd just been thrown in with him. He thought of the fearful looks on the faces of their captors as they watched the open maw of the cathedral before Steve had gone in. Danny must have done them some damage too.

"That's my boy" he murmured. "Hope you kicked their asses."

But what should he have done differently? He had no idea. Somehow he had managed to fail at every turn.

One thing was for sure. Danny was in trouble. If he didn't get medical help, and soon, the chances were he would succumb to the infection. It was as simple as that. And there wasn't one single thing he could do about it.

He tightened his arms around his friend and held him close, feeling entirely helpless. Danny was so sick and he couldn't do a thing for him but sit with him and hold him, now terrified he might just fade away in his arms without ever even knowing he wasn't alone.

He leant over Danny, stroking the hair back off his sweat-soaked brow and whispering meaningless words of reassurance to him. He kissed his hot forehead, then leaned back against the wall.

He couldn't remember feeling this utterly useless and out of his depth in his life.

He ground his head back against the stone wall, hard, and bit his trembling lip as he was swamped by an unfamiliar feeling of utter defeat as the power of positive thinking abandoned him entirely in this place which might just become their tomb.

TBC


	13. Chapter 13

CHAPTER 13

Time passed in strange flashes as Steve drifted, succumbing to exhaustion, stress and injury.

He dreamed about Danny. Weird, dark dreams, framed by swirling shapes. Danny falling to his death, over and over, Steve never quite managing to grab him in time. Danny yelling at him, desperate, _begging,_ but Steve just couldn't make out his words.

He awoke with a start, eyes snapping open, heart pounding in his chest. A film of sweat covered his body and his head felt like it was splitting. For a moment he thought he was blind. Then he remembered where he was and instantly tightened his grip on Danny again.

His partner hadn't moved, but Steve could hear his shallow breaths, still feel the heat radiating from him. He was alive at least.

Steve took a long, shaky breath, then stroked Danny's cheek tenderly. "Hey buddy." He whispered, "how you holding up?"

He didn't really expect a response, but Danny stirred, shifting slightly in his arms.

Steve braced himself, ready to restrain him again.

"Danny, just take it easy. You're okay. It's just Steve. I've got you," he murmured. He wanted to tell him he was safe, but that would be a lie.

"S-Steve?" The voice was weak, barely audible.

"Danny?" Steve gasped, astonished. Then a grin split his face, just for a moment, because not only was Danny conscious, he  _knew_ him! Danny was still in there!

He cupped Danny's cheek, wiping away the wetness he felt there with his thumb. "You have no idea how good it is to hear your voice, Danno."

Danny's breaths came a little faster. "Can't see," he murmured.

"I know, it's okay." soothed Steve. "It's just really, really dark in here. I can't see either. Don't worry about it. How you feeling?"

"M'good."

Steve laughed, the sound strained with emotion. "Yeah you are, Danno."

They sat in silence for a moment, Danny barely able to talk and Steve not quite trusting his voice. Then again, he was unsure what he should say. He couldn't say everything was going to be OK because it still felt like Danny was dying in his arms and there was nothing, absolutely nothing he could do about it. He couldn't say he was going to get them out of there. If the opportunity arose, he was sure as hell going to fight to do just that with every breath he had left. But if it didn't, if that stone stayed across the door….

And he didn't want to mention Gracie knowing they might never see her again, she might be left without her Danno for good, her heart shattered into a million pieces, because he knew for sure that would do the same to Danny.

So Steve just held him, unable to stop himself gently stroking Danny's hot cheek, even though he suspected it would ordinarily have earned him a smack in the face.

"B'k-up?"

Steve had thought Danny had drifted again and the sudden question took him by surprise. He huffed out a noise, somewhere between an incredulous laugh and a sob. "You know me, buddy….you  _are_  the back-up."

Danny snorted. He lifted a hand up and grasped Steve's arm for a moment, then his grip slipped and his hand fell away. Just like that, he was gone again.

Steve grabbed his hand as it fell and held on to it, squeezing gently. He dipped his head, lowering it to press his own forehead gently against Danny's.

"I've got ya, partner." He murmured, before letting himself drift too.

…

Steve was thrust back to consciousness by erratic movements emanating from his stricken partner. He was trying to get away from him, pushing weakly at Steve's chest, good leg scrabbling against the floor, virtually hyperventilating.

Steve tightened his hold on Danny, easily restraining him. "Easy Danny easy. It's just me, it's Steve."

Danny gave up his struggles and turned his face in towards Steve's chest. He started to whisper, harsh and insistent.

Steve lowered his head, trying to make out the words Danny was pushing out with such intensity.

"Go. Got to go, it wants… to  _hurt_  you. Knows you're here."

The hair on the back of Steve's neck stood on end. He tried to reassure him. "No, Danny, it's OK. There's no one in here but you and me. I'm not leaving you." He held back from saying there was no way out anyway. Danny was distressed enough already.

"No.  _It._ It's here." Danny insisted, shivers wracking his body.

"I promise it's just you and me here. No one else. I've checked, OK?"

Suddenly focused, Danny grabbed one of Steve's fingers. He raised it to his own forehead and pressed it to his skin.

"No! In  _here_. You go! Can't stop it!"

Steve frowned in confusion. "I don't understand, Danno. What's in your head?"

" _It._ Demon."

Steve was struck dumb. "Danny," he said after a moment, "listen, you're sick, okay? You're confused. You're leg's infected. And I think those people gave you  _something._ There's a weird smell, I don't know what it is. Did they give you something? Some drug? The reek from it's making my head spin too."

Danny was silent for a moment. "Drink. Made me drink…" His voice was barely a whisper.

"There you go then. There's no demon in your head, I can promise you that. I…" he hesitated, desperately wanting to say something positive. He huffed out a breath, resigned to speaking of the things he had wanted to avoid. Anything to bolster Danny, give him something to cling on to. "I came to take you home, okay? Back to Grace. The plan's gone a bit…wrong. But I'm hoping…."

Danny began thrashing against Steve again, obviously distressed.

"Danny, easy! What's wrong?"

"No! It wants her." Danny hissed out, teeth clenched.

"What?"

"It saw her. Here." He poked Steve's finger at his own forehead again. "Wants her. Can't go home.  _Hurt_ her."

"Danny, there's nothing in your head and you would  _never_ hurt Gracie!" Steve insisted gently.

"It made me hurt you." Danny's voice might have been weak but his words were crystal clear.

Steve's jaw dropped. Had Danny been aware of what had happened between them? He didn't really expect him to remember anything about what had happened earlier he'd been so out of it. The implication of Danny's words was inescapable. Had he really  _known_ it was Steve he was attacking?!

Steve shook off the uncomfortable feeling that had descended on him. Danny was in a terrible state and Steve couldn't start reading anything in to what he was saying. "OK, you need to calm down. You're sick and you're confused. I know you didn't mean to hurt me and I'm  _fine_  anyway. But it wasn't a demon, it's just your mind playing tricks on you, okay?"

"It killed  _them._ " Danny's tone was insistent. "Out there. Couldn't stop it. Couldn't stop it hitting you."

"Okay, it's okay, shh." Steve hushed him gently. "Don't worry about that now. Let's just worry about getting out of here. We can sort everything else out when we get back. We can sort  _anything_. Even demons. Promise."

Danny shook his head. "You go. And Selena."

Steve squeezed his eyes shut. "I'm sorry, buddy, Selena's dead", he said gently.

"Yeah. No eyes," said Danny, then sobbed. "Couldn't help her."

Steve's heart twisted as he heard the guilt and pain in his partner's voice. "Easy Danno, please!"

Danny's agitation continued unabated. "Take her home! They….. need to bury her.  _Can't_ leave her."

Steve shook his head, knowing exactly where Danny was coming from. Trust him to be thinking of the girl's family even as he lay dangerously ill and trapped in the dark. "She's gone, Danno. It's too late for her. I want to take  _you_ home."

Danny jerked wildly, agitated. "No! Not safe….. Leave me. Promise!"

"Danny….."

" _Promise_."

"Danny…please calm down. I...I promise I'll do the right thing, okay?"

It was weak and would never normally have got past Danny, but it seemed to satisfy him. He sagged down, going limp in Steve's arms.

"Danny?" Steve felt frantically for his partner's pulse when he got no response.

It was there. He had passed out yet again.

Steve's head was spinning. For all Danny had been weak as a kitten the first time he had woken, he had seemed lucid. Now, the confusion, hallucinations- whatever- had returned. He  _knew_ it was the combination of sickness and drugs causing it. At least he hoped it was. It still gave him a chill to think Danny had known it was him when he had attacked him, even if he had thought he was…what….possessed by a demon? His heart ached for Danny. The whole experience had to be beyond terrifying. He so wanted to make things right for him, to at least give him a fighting chance of living, of recovering and knowing peace again.

But how could he hope to do that? It felt like it would take a miracle to save them now.

Sitting in the dark, holding Danny close, Steve found himself praying. Praying that that door would open again. Praying that this wasn't  _it_.

…

The door opened again.

The grating noise of the heavy stone shifting, and the accompanying grunts of those shifting it, brought Steve scrambling to his feet. He somehow managed to lay Danny down and position himself between his now unconscious friend and the threatened violence of the outside world before daylight even breached the growing gap.

When it did he closed his eyes tightly, shading them with his hands, because it  _burned._ They had been in that black hole for so long it felt like he was trying to look directly into the sun.

Then everything happened too fast, like the tide sweeping up and over them. Before his eyes could adjust, arms grabbed at him and dragged him away from Danny. He struggled and shouted and swore, even as was hauled outside, even as he was shoved hard against an upright post, even as ropes were tightened around him, his neck, his waist. As his wrists were strung together, stretched out behind him, raucous voices yelling around him.

"Danny! Danny!" he screamed, gagging as the ropes tightened around his neck.

But when his eyes finally let him see, Danny was there too. He was upright only because he, too was tied by his waist and neck, hands behind his back round the back of a second post. Selena's post. The remains of the girl now lay slumped behind it.

Steve's heart was in his throat. Could Danny even  _breathe_ , slumped forwards against those ropes?  _Was_ he even breathing? He couldn't tell and it scared the crap out of him.

"Danny! Danny! Let him  _go_!" he yelled out, trying to get someone,  _anyone_ , to pay him heed.

His distressed shouts were irrelevant to those around him. They were busy, in the midst of some bizarre ceremony. One man stood in the open space in front of him. The rest were silent. Standing back respectfully, listening closely.

The man wore a long, brown cloak that flapped in the breeze, and a tunic with what looked like a depiction of the sun amongst crazy, twirling patterns, dyed into the brown cloth in yellows and reds. The tunic Steve recognised, but it was a new face behind it- not the dead, bearded man who he had seen propped up mannequin-like as he was marched into the complex.

It was the blue-eyed youth. The youth who he had last seen staring at photos of Danny and Selena, clutching the quartzite cube.

Steve frowned in confusion. The youth was standing as though he was a  _leader_ but he had to be the youngest person there. He remembered the fear he had seen in his eyes and hoped to hell there was some humanity in there  _somewhere._

"Please, let him down, he can't  _breathe, please._ " He pleaded.

The youth turned and stared him in the eye, face unreadable. He turned away from him again, addressing the men gathered around him. As he spoke, the others began to chant, low at first but louder and louder until they were shouting together, rhythmically, in time.

The blue eyed youth was shouting now, pointing up at the sun, pointing back at Danny then Steve, pointing at the symbol on the tunic. He bent down on one knee and began to scratch a design into the dirt. It was a crude representation of the 5-0 badge, central circle plainly depicted as the sun.  _Everything_ was about the sun.

Something clicked in his head….the summer solstice. The longest day of the year. It had to be about now- the land, the vegetation, had looked just as it had in the wilder parts of Orkney before he had 'travelled'- it had to be the same time of year. He remembered the solstices were a time believed to be sacred to ancient societies. A time of celebration and….sacrifice. Oh God no….were they going to be sacrificed to the sun? That was just... awesome.

The chanting reached a crescendo as the youth yelled out "Tana, Tana, Tana, Tana," then all the voices yelled it together.

The youth raised both hands.

Everything stopped.

There was silence, interrupted only by the noise of the wind whistling around the tops of the high building walls.

A second young man appeared from behind the throng, carrying a bowl. He ran up to the blue-eyed youth, head carefully bowed down to avoid eye contact, and held the vessel out to him. Blue Eyes took it, then walked slowly over to Danny. He stopped in front of him, placed the bowl at his feet and pulled something from the folds in his tunic. A flint blade. Steve saw it glistening in the sun, sharp and hard as steel.

The blue-eyed youth bent and placed the tip of the blade in the bowl for a moment, then stood up. He raised the weapon towards Danny's face.

He paused for a beat, then, with a growl, drew the blade sharply across Danny's throat.

Steve screamed so loud his voice broke. "Noooo!"

TBC


	14. Chapter 14

CHAPTER 14

Steve strained wildly against his bonds, screaming Danny's name, certain he would see blood pumping from his partner's neck as the blue-eyed youth stepped back.  _Certain_ Danny was finished.

He panted with distress as he caught sight of the dark liquid running from the scored line on Danny's throat. Not an arterial bleed at least but…

Steve double took, blinking in confusion. The liquid was  _blue_! He could have fainted with relief as realisation hit him- it was  _paint_ , not blood. Danny's throat hadn't been slit at all, this was just another part of the mad bastards' ritual. The youth was still at work, smearing thick, dark blue viscous lines on his partner's cheeks and forehead.

Danny didn't react at all. Not to the sweeping touches from the flat edge of the knife, not to Steve's frantic calls. He remained motionless, head hanging slightly forward, its full weight supported only by the rope around his neck. There was no way,  _no way,_ he could breathe properly like that.

Sick with fear, Steve never took his eyes from his partner, praying he would see some indication that Danny was still alive even as he tried desperately to find some leeway, some weakness, in the ropes that held him.

The young leader finally turned away from Danny and walked sedately over to stand in front of Steve.

Steve stared wildly into his eyes. "You have to untie me! You have to let me help him! We've done  _nothing_  to you!" he pleaded frantically, helplessly. "Please!"

Blue Eyes stared at Steve dispassionately. He raised the stained flint blade, then began to repeat the same process on Steve that he had subjected Danny to. Steve flinched involuntarily at the unpleasant sensation but held the youth's eye.

"Please." Steve whispered. "He's going to die.  _Please._ "

He caught a flicker of…something…. in the young man's face. Apprehension? Compassion? Steve frowned, trying to understand what he was seeing but failing miserably.

As Blue Eyes finished his task, he stepped in closer until he was almost nose to nose with Steve. He inhaled an audible breath as though steeling himself, then suddenly pressed himself up against the full length of Steve's body in an overtly sexual manner. He raised a hand to caress Steve's cheek.

Steve's stomach dropped, nausea rising at the unexpected move.

Jeers and laughter echoed around the small courtyard. Apparently, the gathered throng approved of the idea of a little humiliation for their prisoner.

Steve shuddered at the close proximity of the now-hated figure. He could feel the youth's steady breaths on his mouth and it felt so wrong, so  _intimate_ , he almost turned his head away. But instead he held that eye contact, his own expression hardening to one of cold hate.

The youth moved almost imperceptibly then, his long cloak shielding his actions from his compatriots so only Steve was privy to what he was actually doing. Still stroking Steve's cheek with one hand, he ran the back of his other hand down Steve's arm, tracing it round to the back of the post where his hands were bound together.

But then something strange happened. Another unpredictable shift away from what Steve thought he understood,  _knew_ , about their current reality to something entirely different.

Steve gasped in complete and utter disbelief as he found the bone hilt of the flint blade being pressed insistently into his hands.

It had been a cover! Blue Eyes had pressed himself up against Steve as a c _over_!

Time seemed to stand still. Steve stared into those young eyes, blue as the Hawaiian seas and now open, unguarded. He saw the fierce intelligence, the determination behind the apprehension. He realised with a start that these people weren't a faceless group of savages, united in unholy intent. They were individuals existing in a climate of oppression and fear. And he understood the expression on the youthful face in front of him. He had seen it before, on desperate missions in war-torn countries, when  _someone_  finally, finally musters the courage to stand up to fight for what they believe in.

Steve had thought he and Danny were entirely alone. But he it seemed he might have just found his miracle.

The youth took a step back, breaking contact with him. He gave Steve a half-smile, before miming the movement of returning the blade to the folds of his tunic, apparently for the benefit of those behind him.

Blue Eyes swung back round to address the assembled men. He pointed at the sun, then took a deep breath, opened his mouth and began to chant. "Tana, Tana, Tana". The word was repeated at full volume and those around him joined in instantly, arms raised high. The noise of their combined efforts was almost deafening.

Then, still chanting, Blue Eyes fell to his knees and pressed his forehead to the ground.

Steve watched in utter astonishment as every last man followed suit.

And so began the most unexpected and bizarre rescue attempt Steve had ever experienced. It was so entirely surreal he felt like he was dreaming. He waited for true reality to kick in, sure he was about to wake up and find himself still holding Danny in that dark, dark place, feeling the life ebb slowly but surely out of him.

It didn't happen.

Steve grabbed the opportunity given to him with both hands. He cut away his bonds with half a dozen determined slices. He cast his eyes incredulously round the throng of men, faces pressed to the ground as they chanted, then ran, light-footed, over to Danny.

 _Please, please, please be alive_ , he thought, eyeing his partner's pale, sweaty face fearfully as he approached. He pressed his fingers to Danny's neck even as he hacked the ropes away from him with his other hand. He huffed out a shaky breath when he felt the rapid, unsteady beat still pulsing in Danny's carotid artery.  _Thank God!_ Danny's vitals were poor, his breathing slow and shallow, but he was alive. There was hope yet.

Steve's first fleeting look at Danny's thigh wound made his stomach clench. Angry, swollen and oozing pus, with tell-tale red lines of inflamed blood vessels radiating away from it. It was as bad as it could possibly be.

Restraints gone, Danny sank down bonelessly. Steve caught him, kneeling to ease him across his shoulders in a fireman's lift. He held Danny secure with his left arm, elbow hooked around his leg and fist gripping his arm tightly. His right hand clutched the flint blade, poised to fight.

Steve hesitated, trying to see a way out. There were men all around them apart from to the rear, where any potential escape was effectively blocked by the cathedral itself and the massive outer complex wall behind it. He looked over at Blue Eyes, hoping there might have been more to his plan than the flint blade and the distraction.

Evidently there was.

Blue Eyes lifted his head a little, looking back towards them. Still chanting, he caught Steve's uncertain eye and moved his hand, gesturing discretely towards the outer wall behind the cathedral. Steve shook his head- no way could he get Danny over that gargantuan wall. But Blue Eyes pointed again, insistent.

The youth had just provided him with the first break he'd had since he exited Tankerness House Museum in a flash of light. He  _had_  to trust him. He had no choice.

Steve backed away cautiously in the direction he'd indicated.

Just then all hell broke loose.

One of the bowed men yelled out, apparently having noticed what was going on.

Blue Eyes leapt to his feet and shouted a command. A dozen men or so rushed instantly to Blue Eye's side armed with a variety of weapons.

The remainder of the gathered men, far greater in number than Blue Eyes' team, were clearly unprepared, caught on the back foot. They scrambled for weapons, yelling ferociously, then charged chaotically towards Steve and Danny.

Feeling entirely cornered, Steve found himself yelling back at them wordlessly, adrenaline pumping as he faced them down, blade held out in front of him. He was ready to defend Danny to his last breath.

But the incensed men never made it as far as Steve and Danny.

In what had to be a carefully orchestrated move, Blue Eyes' men formed a line across the front of the cathedral, an armed human barrier facing the remainder of the furious warriors, cutting them off from the loose prisoners and their unexpected ally.

Steve stared in bewildered horror as an all-out bloody battle began to rage between the two sides. They seemed to have inadvertently kicked off a civil war.

Blue Eyes grabbed Steve's arm and began pulling him around the side of the cathedral towards the wall. Steve ran, grunting under the deadweight of his partner. He shot a fleeting glance back at Selena, remembering his half-hearted promise to Danny about taking her home.

Blue Eyes saw it. He pushed Steve on, but turned and ran back towards Selena, grabbing her arm and heaving her up over his own shoulder, seemingly uncaring of her now decomposing state.

As they rounded the back of the cathedral, an unholy stench assaulted Steve's nostrils, above and beyond the general smell of death that clung to the place.

Steve's mind stuttered again as he saw in front of him yet more evidence that this break-out had been carefully planned and co-ordinated. The source of the smell was easy to see. The wall would have been unassailable, just as he had thought, had a kind of a ramp not been constructed up against it, hidden from view by the massive cathedral itself. It had to be five metres high!  _How_  and  _when_ it had been put in place…he had no idea. But it was bizarre, grotesque, thanks to the use of what Steve supposed had to be the most plentiful portable raw material available- body parts of dead animals- as the main construction material.

It was foul, but Steve had no time to think about it. He tucked his knife into the waistband of his cargo pants and, hanging onto Danny with one arm, began to climb up the macabre structure. He grimaced as his hands and feet sunk into some of the more decayed corpses.

He made it to the top of the pile, a mere metre short of the top of the wall. He vaulted up easily onto the wide, flat surface, coming to rest in a crouched position, the cold wind now buffeting him. A bull's head resting atop the wall stared back at him through blank, sunken eyes from its position a couple of metres away. He looked away, out towards the hills beyond. Towards freedom.

He turned and watched anxiously as Blue Eyes followed him onto the wall with his grisly burden, then knelt beside him. Blue Eyes pointed down the other side of the wall. Steve peered over the edge at the six metre drop between them and escape, hoping there would be a similar ramp in place nearby for their descent. No such luck. He looked up at Blue Eyes in disbelief.

A closely grouped formation of a dozen men were waiting at the base of the wall on the far side, hands raised. Waiting to  _catch_ them? Talk about a leap of faith!

Blue Eyes smiled at him, then dropped Selena off his shoulder straight over the side of the wall. The small group assembled below caught her easily, then laid her to one side. Blue Eyes threw himself after her without hesitating. He too was safely caught.

Steve turned and glanced in the direction of the battle he could still hear raging beyond the cathedral behind them, then looked down at the waiting faces below him. Fleeting thoughts of the cube, of his weapons, entered his head, but what could he do? They were so outnumbered it was ridiculous. Going back right then would be suicide, even if he knew where his things were. He had to get Danny somewhere safe, try to rehydrate him and clean his wound at least, then work out a way to go back for what he needed.

There was no other way.

Steve lowered Danny gently off his shoulders onto the top of the wall. Offering a silent apology, he eased Danny to the side of the wall, then, gripping him firmly by the wrists, lowered him slowly over the edge. Grunting with the effort, he lowered Danny as far as he could, keeping hold of him until he himself was lying flat on his stomach on the top of the wall, arms fully extended down the side.

Many hands reached up towards Danny's feet. Steve hesitated, knowing he was trusting the life of his best friend to complete strangers. But he had no choice. He could feel his grip starting to slip, his sweaty palms offering no purchase. He finally forced himself to let go, heart in his mouth.

When they caught Danny easily, Steve pressed his face to the top of the wall just for a moment, exhaling raggedly in relief. Then he turned and began to lower himself over the edge, still clinging to the edge of the wall. His feet scrambled for a foothold, but there was none. He let himself drop, closing his eyes until his descent halted abruptly as he too was caught safely.

They were out! They had actually escaped from that hellish place!

Steve could hardly take it in. As he knelt to hoist Danny back over his shoulders, he looked round at the small party of men around him, who had to be risking  _everything_ by helping them.

"Thank you," he said, hoping his grateful smile would convey what his words couldn't.

Blue Eyes smiled back and nodded once.

Approaching shouts made them look around.

Dozens of armed warriors were charging towards them, weapons raised, from the direction of the entrance to the complex. Steve's jaw dropped at the intimidating sight and he turned sharply to look at Blue Eyes, praying he had anticipated this too.

The youth shouted at his group of warriors, hoisting Selena's body back onto his shoulder as he did, then grabbed Steve by the arm. He began to pull him him away from the Ness of Brodgar, away from the narrow part of the land bridge, back towards the Stones of Stenness and the hills beyond.

Steve and Blue Eyes ran hard, side by side, the sound of their pounding feet muffled by the heather, bearing their respective burdens as steady as they could. Steve glanced back over his shoulder to see those dozen men who had caught them as they dropped from the wall now lined up across the narrow bridge of land. They were facing down an army which looked to be a hundred strong. His stride broke as he realised they were leaving those men with an unwinnable battle to fight. He didn't understand  _why_ they were doing this for him and Danny. It just made no sense. He felt himself drawn back, instinctively wanting to face the enemy shoulder-to-shoulder with his new allies, to leave no one behind.

It was Danny's limp weight on his shoulders that pushed him onwards. This was a different world. They may have been a catalyst for the battle, but it was not their fight. His mission was to get Danny home.

Steve had thought they were making for the hills, trying to get as much ground between themselves and the men who would surely hunt them down as soon possible. But they had only run perhaps half a mile, casting constant wary glances back the way they had come, when Blue Eyes turned sharply, heading straight for a an area of long grass and low bushes.

Steve frowned in confusion. Was the plan to hide out here, hope they went unnoticed? The vegetation was waist-high at best and they would be easily seen if anyone came close. It wasn't a sound tactic. Unsure how to convey his concerns, he crashed through the vegetation in Blue Eyes' wake, breathing heavily under Danny's weight.

Blue Eyes came to a halt so suddenly Steve almost ran into him. The young man laid Serena down in the grass then started rooting around at the base of a small clump of bushes. Steve glancing worriedly in the direction they had come. He could still hear the sounds of the battle, for all they were well out of sight of it where they were. They needed to keep moving!

But then the youth stood up and turned to Steve holding out the items he had apparently been searching for. And it seemed Blue Eyes really had thought of everything. In his extended hands were the items he must have cached for the escape. And not only were there two spears for them to protect themselves with…the youth had brought Steve's rucksack!

Steve huffed out an astonished breath and virtually fell on the kit bag. He snatched it, downright rude in his desperation to get at the contents.

Finally,  _finally_ , Steve ceased to be nothing but a helpless passenger, along for the ride. Finally he could take some ownership of the situation. He could  _do_  something for Danny.

He was vaguely aware that Blue Eyes was pulling at him, trying to get him to run again, but for all they weren't yet safe, he  _had_ to do this straight away, he  _had_ to get the first aid kit, get some antibiotics into Danny's system.

He laid Danny gently on the ground and knelt down, reaching again to check his pulse. He inhaled sharply. The pulse was still there, still too rapid, too unsteady and too weak. But there was a marked change in Danny's condition now, one that made Steve's blood run cold. He swore under his breath.

For all Danny was still unconscious he was now breathless, panting as though he had been running himself. The fevered heat that had consumed him had dissipated altogether. Danny's skin was now cold and clammy. Steve knew for sure what that meant. Danny's fever hadn't simply broken, he wasn't getting better. Quite the opposite. The changes told Steve that Danny  _did_ have sepsis as he had feared, and now the infection had progressed, rampaging around his system. Danny's condition was critical.

"Shit Danny, please hold on. Please, just hold on," he murmured as he tore open the bag. He emptied the contents on the grass beside them- weapons, first aid kit, water- everything he had so desperately needed was there….except the cube. At least the badly-needed drugs were there.

His fear was that it was too little, too late.

With shaking hands he pulled open the first aid kit, selecting a bottle of antibiotics and a syringe. He tore a needle out of a sterile packet and attached it, cursing his fumbling fingers, then he hurriedly inverted the bottle and measured out a hefty dose. He rolled Danny onto his side, pushed the waistband of his boxers out of the way and stuck the needle in below his hip.

He began to sort through the rest of the medications, searching for the anti-inflammatory he knew was in there somewhere.

Blue Eyes tapped his shoulder again. He grunted, barely looking round. When the tap came again, he turned in annoyance. The youth had been watching, enthralled. Now he was holding his hand out again, an apologetic expression on his face. Steve glanced down at his hand absently, then double took.

There, nestled in the youth's palm, was the quartzite cube.

Steve laughed out loud in complete and utter disbelief! He reached out and took the artefact, shooting Blue Eyes a dazzling smile,, feeling immeasurable gratitude towards the young man who he had once mistaken as his enemy. He wondered if he even knew what the artefact could do or simply saw it as returning something that had been stolen to its rightful owner.

Blue Eyes smiled back, then an uncertain look crossed his face. He looked down at Danny, then up at Steve. He crouched down beside them, regarding Steve with earnest eyes.

He pointed to the front of his tunic, to one of the free-flowing designs wrapped around the depiction of the sun. It was heavily stylised, but it looked like it might be a face, two red eyes the only discernible features on it. Steve looked at him, confused.

Blue Eyes then reached a hand towards Danny's face. Steve almost grabbed his arm to stop him, protective of his partner in spite everything the youth had done for them, but he held himself back.

Blue Eyes pointed to Danny's forehead, touching it gently with the tip of his finger. He pointed again at the strange face on his tunic as if for emphasis, then he held his finger up in front of Steve, face full of apprehension and concern.

It was a warning, Steve was sure, about what was unclear. Danny's delirious ramblings about demons came automatically to mind and a chill went down Steve's spine. He shook the feeling off- he had far more pressing things to worry about.

Blue Eyes stood up and withdrew to the side of the clearing without a word. He glanced back at Steve, then squared his shoulders and stood firmly with his back to them, spear poised to strike. He was evidently intent on protecting them to the last.

Steve looked at the cube in his hands, then looked at the young man. He had to go, he knew that. Danny's life depended on it. But he simply had to give the boy a fighting chance against that mass of warriors who would surely make short work of his men.

"Hey!" Steve called. He picked up the shotgun and waved it. Blue Eyes backed over towards him, plainly reluctant to leave his post.

Ensuring he had Blue Eyes' full attention, Steve slowly and deliberately showed him how to load a cartridge in the weapon, then pointed it into the sky and pulled the trigger.

Blue Eyes cried out in alarm at the deafening bang, falling backwards and trying to scramble away before registering Steve's calm expression. He got back to his feet, coming forward curiously.

Steve handed him the weapon and the cartridges, then pointed towards the distant sounds of fighting. Blue Eyes nodded in astonished understanding. He turned and marched back to his self-appointed post.

Steve had no idea if Blue Eyes could manage to use the weapon, but at least he was leaving him with a fighting chance. After everything the young man had done, everything he'd risked and sacrificed…it was the least he could do.

Steve turned back to Danny. This was it. This was their one and only chance of getting back to where they belonged. It was Danny's only real chance of  _living._

He picked up the cube then heaved Danny into a sitting position and tucked himself in behind him, clinging on tight with his arms and legs around his friend. He lifted Danny's hands, holding the cube out in front and pressing both his own and Danny's fingers against the infinity symbols.

He glanced at Selena, uncertain how to try to include her. In the end he simply hooked a leg around hers.

Steve huffed out a nervous breath. "Right, Danny boy. I have no idea if this is going to work but we've got to give it a go. I need you to think about Gracie, okay? Can you do that for me? Forget about the demon stuff and just picture Gracie. She needs you buddy."

There was no response, of course, but Steve prayed his words had penetrated Danny's sub-conscious on some level.

"Please, please let this work." He said through gritted teeth, then shut his eyes, thought of Danny's beautiful daughter and began to recite McGill's incantation.

….

The second trip through time proved almost as disorientating as the first.

Steve came around looking up at a blue, cloudless sky, his head pounding unbearably.

But this time he remembered straight away. He remembered being captured, being imprisoned. He remembered  _Danny._ But where was he?

Steve sat up, panicking, almost going down again when the landscape around him spun sickeningly, but somehow managing to stay upright.

He scanned his surroundings desperately. He was lying in undergrowth, wedged against a wire fence at the side of a road. Squinting, he could make out the high stones of the Ring of Brodgar in the distance, power lines running nearby.

Roadway, fence and power lines? They were back! But where were the others?

He turned and looked the other way. No Danny. No Selena.

Steve forced himself to his feet, staggering sideways into the fence as he did. "Danny! Dannnyyyyyyy!" he yelled, breathing hard, frantic with worry.

He turned one way, then the other, both hands on his head. "No, no, no, please don't tell me he's still back there. Oh God!"

It hadn't worked. He was alone.

He had lost Danny!

He sank back down to his knees, shaking his head, face twisting in pain. Then he surged up again because no way was he giving up! He wasn't leaving Danny behind!

His hands were empty of course, the cube left behind. He had to try to go back! He had to get the other cube from the museum again and go back! It would be a one-way trip but no WAY was he leaving Danny there to die alone!

He started to half-walk, half-run in the direction of Brodgar, hoping for help, hoping for a phone, a car.

Then he saw it.

Sticking out of the weed-filled drainage ditch at the side of the road was a hand.

"Danny?" He sprinted over on wobbling legs, then fell to his hands and knees. It  _was_  Danny, facedown and motionless in the mud.

Hands shaking, Steve grabbed the arm and hauled his partner's limp, heavy body out of the mire. He rolled him onto his back.

Panic flooded Steve because his partner was so cold. The laboured panting had ceased and Danny was terrifyingly still.

"No! No way! No way in hell are you dying on me now, Danno! Not now! Not after all this! Don't you  _fucking_ dare!" Steve growled, voice breaking, trembling fingers searching for a pulse.

He found nothing.

TBC


	15. Chapter 15

CHAPTER 15

Steve sat stock still in the church pew, his black suit pressed perfectly, his lean face as white as marble beneath the yellowing bruises. His eyes were front and centre but focused a million miles away. Everything had gone wrong. Guilt was eating him from the inside out. He felt like he had failed, let everyone down in the worst possible ways.

A movement against his arm jerked him into the present and he turned to Grace. She looked beautiful, and a decade older than her years. A tear ran down her cheek and he tightened his grip around her shoulder, wishing he could take her pain away.

A full week had passed and still none of it seemed real. How could it? None of it should have been possible and none of it should have happened. It was hard to believe it really  _had_ happened.

He felt odd. Detached. Like he was watching everything through a thick pane of glass, an outsider in someone else's world. His own reality was stuck- stuck in that dark, dark building, his friend in his arms whispering to him in earnest about the demon in his head.

Steve cast his eyes up to the minister, addressing the congregation from the cathedral pulpit. He didn't envy the man, because what could he possibly say to make any single one of them feel any better?

"We may never really know what happened," he was saying, voice solemn, timbre low and melodic. "Time has been stolen from us. Time a family should have had with their daughter. Time she should have had to live her life. She is lost to us, but at least we have the comfort of knowing she didn't suffer. At least we have her back. Her parents held her one last time and were able to say 'goodbye'. And for that, we give thanks."

Danny had been right, of course. Bringing Selena back was the right thing to do. It didn't make him feel better. The knowledge that she had been killed outright by a single blow to the head, that she hadn't been drugged, she hadn't suffered like Danny had. It didn't help.

Because, not only was that poor girl dead, not only did her parents get to say 'goodbye' to a decayed, disfigured version of their beloved daughter, not only had he been too late to help  _her_ , but he had taken too long to bring Danny home. He had let him get too sick.

Now Danny teetered between life and death, infection rampaging through his body as he was sustained by the miracles of modern medicine. Steve could still hear the rhythmic hiss of the respirator in his dreams, not that sleep was coming to him with any regularity.

It had been a close thing. Steve had got lucky, a passing farmer summoning help after coming across him carrying out CPR on Danny in the middle of the narrow roadway. He wanted to blank the memory of those desperate moments for good but they just kept replaying in his head. His partner's lips, cold against his own, the sickening 'crack' of his ribs as Steve had tried frantically to just keep him going until help came. The knowing look the paramedics had exchanged. He had known they didn't think they were going to get him back.

That had been the moment when the shutters came down around Steve, when everything had  _stopped._ Had ceased to be real.

Somehow the paramedics  _had_  got him back. Just. But Steve was left trapped, numb and alone, behind those thick panes of glass.

Miller had met them at the hospital. Steve had told him the highlights of the bizarre story even as the doctors battled to stabilise his partner in the next room. Miller had then disappeared, leaving Steve to his private hell. He returned hours later with the news that Selena's body had been found half a mile from where Danny and Steve had materialised.

Steve was glad, he really was. He just couldn't show it because he couldn't feel a single thing right then beyond the guilt. He was numb behind his pane of glass.

He needed Danny to pull through. It would all seem worth it if he just pulled through. Everything would surely click back into place. He needed him to wake up and just be Danny again. No brain damage, no demons. He would give  _anything_ to hear him bitch at him mercilessly. He would bask in his wrath and take it all, take all the blame for  _anything_.

The self-loathing for the way the mission had gone down became all-consuming, dominating everything in his glass prison. He had been pathetic, powerless, until a youth barely into his manhood had taken pity on them for reasons he would never fathom and had risked everything for them. He didn't even know what had happened to the blue-eyed youth, left facing down an army with a sawn-off shotgun he didn't know how to use and a box of ten cartridges. More blood on Steve's hands.

He had tried to fix it. He and Miller had gone to the museum and got their hands on the surviving quartzite cube again, Steve determined he could try harder, do better, even if he only had a one-way ticket this time. He had tried thinking of Selena, he had tried thinking of Danny, back before it had all gone wrong. He had tried thinking of a specific place and moment in time, to stop Selena making the choice she did. He had tried to change history. But nothing had happened. The cube had glowed but absolutely nothing had happened.

Steve couldn't understand what he was doing wrong, he couldn't get his tired head around it. Now all he wanted to do was sit at Danny's bedside and hold his hand until the moment it was all over, one way or the other, and let his own self-destructive thoughts run amok.

But he had to be strong for Grace. And they had to come to the remembrance service for Selena. It was important to Grace- they had been friends. It would have been important to Danny too. That made it important to Steve.

So he watched through his thick pane of glass, waiting, wondering absently if it would ever break, if he would ever really feel anything again.

…

Miller knocked gently on the open door of the ICU room.

It was late. Grace and her grandmother had left for the night leaving Steve to his vigil alone.

Steve turned at the noise, getting up and walking to the door when he saw who it was. He plastered on an appropriate expression so Miller wouldn't notice the pane of glass between them, then pulled him into the corridor so they could talk in low voices outside the room as though somehow their muted conversation might disturb his comatose partner.

Miller placed a big hand on his shoulder. "How's he doing?"

Steve shook his head by way of response. "They think they've saved his leg, though. That has to be good, right?"

"Yeah." Miller replied, trying to sound upbeat, but they were both thinking the same thing. Two legs wouldn't do him much good if he stayed in a coma forever. "Did the toxicology results ever come back from that shit they made him drink?"

Steve sighed deeply. "Yeah. Apparently it was a cocktail of fermented barley, black henbane and hemlock."

"Jesus. Hemlock? That's bad, right?"

"Yeah. Highly toxic. So's the henbane, but it also causes hallucinations in a big way. Professor Roy was in earlier. She said back in the 80's archaeologists extracted traces of that exact mixture of ingredients from pottery vessels found on a Neolithic site near Skara Brae, just a few miles from Brodgar. They theorised the hallucinatory effects were incorporated into ritual practices. They even gave it a name- the Orkney Brew."

"Not just a theory now, though, right?"

Steve snorted, leaning back against the wall behind him. "Yeah. She's pretty damn sure they gave it to him to 'prepare' him to be their grand sacrifice for the solstice. She said there are modern tribes that take hallucinogens to communicate with their ancestors, make it easier to pass on to the next life. Same idea, apparently."

"Okay. Awesome theory." Miller's tone was flat.

"Fucking fascinating, I'm sure." Steve spat, careful to sound appropriately bitter. "Not that anyone's ever going to hear it. The crap he drank was just something else our whacky, untraceable wanna-be serial killer inflicted on Danny, right?"

Miller shifted to stand beside him, sagging back to lean on the wall, mirroring Steve's position. "Well, we can hardly report what actually happened, can we?! I'd sooner spend months chasing my tail on a pointless, high profile enquiry and then have a giant black mark on my record for somehow letting Selena's killer slip through my fingers than end up locked up for being fucking insane."

Steve nodded. It was true. There was no other easy way to explain the sudden re-appearances of Selena and Danny that was preferable to the web of lies concocted by Miller while Steve was still too shell-shocked to even give the need for a cover story any thought. So, apparently, a mystery killer had murdered Selena and kidnapped Danny, then dumped them for reasons unknown before disappearing without a trace.

Steve's injuries had raised some eyebrows, but nobody had seemed surprised to hear he had been so tired he had managed to trip and fall down a flight of stairs.

The bizarre behaviour they had all exhibited at the museum had been put down to stress. Many apologies and a small financial contribution later, the ruffled feathers had been put back into place.

McGill had happily opted to plead guilty to the theft of the artefacts over making public declarations about time travel. It was a first offence and he had the stress of his friend having gone missing to go some way towards mitigating his actions. Between that and the fact he had told police where the artefacts were, he would most likely get nothing more than a small fine, if the matter ever even came to court.

"So…." Miller glanced over at Steve. "That kind of poisoning. Can he recover from that? Is it even possible?"

Sometimes Steve was glad of his pane of glass, keeping him numb, keeping emotions at bay. It made answering questions like that physically possible, kept him from falling apart. "They can't really say. It's not a common thing. People write papers on it when it happens. They're gonna be fucking queueing up for this one. Apparently there have been cases where people have lived and been okay. More cases where they've been comatose for months and never been right. Some cases where they've died pretty quickly. They don't really know. They just keep saying they're doing what they can. He's just so weak. The poisoning, the infection, the injuries he has. It's all just…a lot." He looked down at his feet.

"I'm sorry. If I can do anything…" said Miller.

"Yeah. Thanks." Steve didn't look at him, knowing his mask was now slipping. He turned and walked back to Danny's side, resuming his post, watching and waiting.

Miller watched him sadly for a moment, then turned and walked away.

…

"Commander?"

Steve jerked awake, sitting up straight in his chair and looking over at Danny before turning to see who had caught him dozing.

"Sorry, Commander. I know it's late. I just…I couldn't sleep." Professor Roy was looking at Danny as she spoke, voice soft and quiet through Steve's pane of glass. "The nursing staff let me in again. They're very..understanding." She lifted a plastic chair from the side of the room and put it down beside Steve's. She sat down.

"Yeah." Steve huffed softly.

They both sat in silence for a few minutes, lulled by the steady, persistent sounds of the machines marking time as Danny waged his silent battle.

Roy picked up the handbag she had casually leant up against the leg of her chair. She opened it up. "So…..I was wondering what to do with this." She pulled the one remaining quartzite cube from her handbag.

Steve stiffened, feeling a flicker of genuine shock pierce through to him. "How did you get that?"

"From the museum. Told them I needed it on loan for academic research. They've let me have it indefinitely. Being a high profile archaeologist has certain benefits."

"Abby, I already tried. I couldn't get it to work. I swear, I tried." His tone was defensive and that was real, a vocalisation of the guilt clinging to his mind inside his cage.

"Steve, stop. I know. Miller told me. That's not what I was meaning. I meant, should I hide it or should I destroy it?"

Steve stared, mouth moving but no sound coming out. The artefacts had caused nothing but heartache, but the idea of  _destroying_  something so powerful seemed wrong. Destroying it would be so final.

Abby apparently saw the conflict written all over his face. "Let me phrase this a different way. I've already decided what I'm going to do. I wanted you to know before I did it. McGill and I have been talking. A lot. He's a very, very intelligent man once you start believing the things he says. He is of the opinion that this artefact is dangerous and should be destroyed. I'm inclined to agree."

Steve shook his head curtly. "But what if… What if Danny doesn't make it? There will be no way for me to try to change it."

"You already tried."

"I might think of another way! If you destroy it, that's it. I can't even try!"

"Commander…Steve…do you know about the grandfather paradox?"

"Sure. I mean I've seen 'Back to the Future'. I get the idea. If you travel back and you're not careful you could kill your grandfather, or stop your parents getting married, or whatever. You cease to exist therefore you can never have travelled through time to make the changes you made to start off with. Right?"

"Right. So that's one theory. You can change things by travelling back in time. Potentially improve things, potentially cause chaos. But you went back. You spread modern germs. You gave someone a _shotgun_? Danny supposedly  _killed_  people."

"Yeah." Suddenly he felt self-conscious. He reached out and picked up Danny's hand, running a gentle finger over the bruised, swollen knuckles.

"Interactions like that, that far back, should have had  _huge_ knock-on effects if time travel actually worked as the grandfather paradox suggests. And is anything different?"

"I don't know. Not that I've noticed."

"Okay, good. And there's a second theory of how it might work- the Novikov self-consistency principle. According to Novikov, time travel is possible without paradoxes occurring because anything a time traveller does has already happened in the past- it's already part of history, and you can do nothing to change history. What's done is done. So nothing any of you did changed  _anything_ because it had already happened, thousands of years ago."

Steve took a minute, trying to absorb what she was saying. "If that's right, it's impossible to fix  _anything._ "

"It is. And I think what has happened supports Novikov absolutely."

"In which case, Selena is dead. I can't fix that. And Danny is…like this. And I can't fix that either."

"Which might explain why the cube didn't work when you tried. It's not possible to change what's done. So if we accept it can't do any good, to stop anything like this happening again…"

"You have to destroy it." Steve's voice was almost a whisper.

Abby reached over and put a hand on his back. "I'm truly sorry. Please know you tried everything. Above and beyond. But I honestly believe what has happened to them has happened and is unchangeable. I really hope that helps on some level."

Steve said nothing, but didn't try to stop her as she stood to leave.

"I'm going before I overthink this and change my mind," she said.

Steve didn't acknowledge her departure. He sat, staring into space. She was right. He  _knew_ she was right. And, if he was honest, he had been having thoughts while he sat alone behind his pane of glass. Dangerous thoughts. Thoughts of Marco Reyes. Thoughts of Frank Delano. Thoughts of the Hesse brothers, of Wo Fat, of his mother. Points in time that he would do  _anything_ to change for his family, his friends, himself.

It was a dangerous, dangerous road. Whatever the truths about time travel, Abby Roy was right. It had to stop. The artefact had to be destroyed.

He looked at Danny's face, white and still, trying to accept the concept that there was no way he could change this, erase it from history and make things right.

This  _was_  reality. His best friend, his friend who had  _begged_ him to leave him behind to face certain death alone because he was so scared of the demon in his own head, his friend was trapped here in his broken body in this, the one and only reality.

It was too much to take in. It still wasn't real to him. The glass pane was still there, thick and impenetrable. Letting go of the possibilities the cube still held within it somehow made that pane of glass seem thicker, made the world around him even more detached.

He picked up Danny's hand between his own and squeezed it, rubbing gently with his thumbs, because he didn't  _want_ to be detached from Danny.

"I'm sorry Danny," he whispered. "I'm so, so sorry."

Steve's only options were hoping and praying. But he was trapped in his glass prison. Those were things he  _couldn't_  do.

So he watched and he waited.

TBC


	16. Chapter 16

CHAPTER 16

Then one day the glass pane shattered.

Steve had felt like he was waiting behind his pane of glass for  _something_ to happen forever _._ Waiting for reality to catch up. For him to  _know_  what was real and to begin to  _live_ again.

One day it did.

To begin with, he had absently thought he was waiting for Danny to wake up, that everything would start again if Danny pulled through. Life would click back into place and he would feel like he really was…where he was. But that wasn't it.

The improvements had happened gradually, almost imperceptibly.

Steve had watched them all through his pane of glass, unable to understand why he didn't feel the elation he knew should feel as his partner slowly came back to them.

For two long, long weeks there had been no changes.

There had been awkward conversations. Organ donation. Family coming, just in case. Danny's parents had arrived, had cried quietly by his bed. Rachel had come, taking his place as Grace's rock, leaving him to sit behind his pane of glass without having to pretend to be there with them quite as much. Leaving him free to sit and watch.

The team- Chin, Kono, Lou- they had been in touch constantly. They were busy of course, holding the fort, but a brief meeting with the governor had them cleared to travel to Kirkwall if the worst news came. The news that Danny wouldn't be coming back. If that had happened, it would have been important that they too had the chance to say goodbye before that switch was flicked off, extinguishing all hope. If that had happened, 5-0 would have been shut down for as long as it took for them to learn to cope.

It didn't happen.

Slowly, the tide began to turn the other way. Gradually, painfully slowly to a man of action like Steve, Danny came back.

Steve saw the people around him smile with relief as Danny's piercing blue eyes opened again, absent and unfocused at first but increasingly aware as the days went by. He heard the gasps of joy as his partner began to respond to basic commands. He watched as the pieces of equipment that had been necessary to sustain life slowly reduced in number. He felt the weak squeeze of Danny's hand as he held it, speaking softly to this man who meant so much to him. But he couldn't feel relief because it didn't feel  _real._

He was playing a role. The dedicated friend, unwilling to leave his partner's side as he clawed his way back to those who loved him. He said the right things, he did the right things. But none of it was real. He saw  _himself_  through the thick pane of glass, watched as he told Danny he was safe, everything was fine. Watched Danny's eyes finally fix on him, finally see him.

He had thought that would be the moment, when it came. Had thought the glass would break when Danny looked right at him, knowing him, apparently undamaged inside. He would  _know_ they had made it then. He would be able to draw a line under what had happened, gently embrace his friend and start everything afresh.

But it wasn't. He played his role to perfection, but the pane of glass remained.

….

Another week on and Danny was stronger. He remained awake for longer, he smiled softly when Grace kissed his cheek. He hadn't spoken yet but the doctors weren't worried. He would get there. He showed no sign of remembering anything that had happened either. Steve had held his breathe when a doctor had asked Danny a gentle, vague question about the mysterious person who had hurt him. Danny had simply stared ahead with a blank expression then shrugged almost imperceptibly.

The doctors now considered him stable enough to travel. He was ready to go home.

Transport arrangements were in place. Danny's parents, Rachel and Grace were to travel ahead to get things ready for him on O'ahu.

Steve remained with him, would always remain with him. He would ensure Danny was safe every step of the way and he would  _watch_.

The glass pane finally cracked when Steve returned to the hospital after driving Danny's family to Kirkwall airport.

He walked back to the ICU on auto-pilot- he could find his way along the winding corridors of the old building in his sleep. But as he turned the corner to the hall outside Danny's room, his hair stood on end and he didn't know why.

Then a doctor ran from Danny's room.

"What's happening?" he heard himself ask, but the man ran on past him.

Steve was in Danny's doorway without ever consciously having moved. He stood, trying to comprehend the chaos in front of him. Danny's bed, empty. Equipment overturned. Nurses barking orders at each other as they clustered round the back corner of the room.

Steve took a long step forwards, eyes never leaving that corner.

There was Danny, eyes wild and fearful, curled in on himself against the base of the wall, striking out weakly when they tried to come near him.

The glass cracked.

It was just the two of them again, alone in that dark, dark building, but this time Steve could see. He strode over, pushing the nurses aside, and grabbed Danny by his shoulders, absorbing his blows without flinching. He sat on the ground beside him, back to the wall, and pulled Danny gently towards him, cradling him in his arms. He whispered to him, finally able to tell him he was safe and feel like he meant it.

Danny curled in towards Steve's chest. Silent facade evaporating, he started to whisper, harsh and insistent. "You promised, you promised, you promised."

Steve closed his eyes and started to shake his head, the cracks in the glass spreading ever wider. He  _knew_ what was real now. "Danny, it's OK, everything's OK," he said. His face screwed up, real emotion finally punching through to him as his friend shook in his arms.

"You promised you'd leave me. You should have left me behind."

"No no no, Danny." Steve ducked his head, talking into Danny's hair. "I promised I'd do the right thing. How could I leave you behind? What would I have said to Gracie?"

"It's  _here._ It wants to  _kill_  her."

The glass pane shattered.

TBC


	17. Chapter 17

CHAPTER 17

Steve watched Danny as he slept the inescapable sleep of the sedated. There was a lump in his throat that just wouldn't  _fucking_ go away. It turned out being newly reconnected with your emotions sucked big time. At least it did when it came hand-in-hand with discovering your best friend, who had hitherto seemed to be okay- weak, miles of physical recovery to go, but okay- has actually been so deeply traumatised by his experiences and/or so damaged by the primitive drugs forced into him that he appears to have been left mentally ill.

Everything made sense in Steve's head now. He could think again, he could feel again. It was like his mind had been waiting for the other shoe to drop. His last conversation with Danny had revolved around his partner's 'demon'. It made a kind of weird sense that Steve's mind had been in stasis, waiting to pick up where they had left off ever since it had looked like Danny might not make it.

When Steve had found Danny trying to hide in that corner, he had held him in his arms for long minutes, curled around him protectively, murmuring meaningless words of comfort and platitude as the whispered revelations had continued to pour out of his terrified partner.

The doctor, who had reappeared with a sedative, crouched discretely across the room from them, watching and listening.

It seemed Danny had been holding back, suppressing everything somehow, while his family were there. Now they were gone, it all came out.

After coming clean about his demon's ongoing presence (despite his blood having been clear of the cocktail of hallucinogens and poisons for more than two  _weeks_ ), Danny had proceeded to scare the shit out of Steve. 'It' had never left him. It had been whispering in his ear the whole time. He had ignored it, pushed it down, terrified about what might happen if he failed to keep it at bay. The thing seemed to reflect his own moods. He thought it was sick when he was sick- it had been weak. He had been able to ignore it. But as he got stronger, so did his demon. And now, after being held down for so long, it was  _so_  angry and  _so_  strong he didn't know how much longer he could hold it off. Now it was telling him to kill again. He was scared it would  _make_ him kill.

Steve cringed, remembering how Danny shook from head to foot as he had made the ever more terrifying string of admissions with his raspy, underused voice.

Danny had grown tired quickly and his speech had devolved into a repetitive slur- "not safe, not safe, no, no, no." Steve had looked over at the doctor who had nodded, approached silently and injected the sedative so carefully Danny hadn't reacted at all.

Steve had held him as his breathing evened out before helping relocate him to his bed, watching as the medical staff reconnected him to everything he had torn out in his panic.

Then he sat and watched him sleep, hoping with all his might Danny's dreams hadn't returned him to that dark, dark place again, hadn't left him trapped there alone with his demon. He held his hand tight, hoping Danny would sense his presence somehow and maybe feel safer.

"Commander McGarrett? Can we talk?"

The doctor's voice jerked him back to the present. He tore his eyes unwillingly from Danny's face to look questioningly at the man.

There was no hiding what had happened. It felt like Danno's dirty laundry had been aired to everyone in that room. Steve instinctively wanted to hide it, like it would stop it being true, even though he knew that was entirely illogical. Danny needed help. But there could be no hiding it, even if it did make any sense to do so. The doctor had heard every word.

He was led to a small room nearby. The door was labelled "Counselling Suite. Knock before entering." The sign pissed him off for no good reason.

There was a second doctor waiting inside for them, sitting on one of the large, comfortable armchairs in the room, diligently reading through notes.

"Please sit down," said Danny's doctor. Doctor James? Steve couldn't remember right then and tried to read the man's name tag but his stethoscope was hanging casually in exactly the wrong place. He sat down.

"Commander, this is Mr Gillespie. He's a consultant psychiatrist here. We've been discussing what's going on with Danny. We wanted to fill you in."

"He's not crazy." The words came out as a reflex, without conviction.

"Commander," Gillespie smiled in a mildly patronising manner. "No one is saying he is. There are a good number of things that could be going on here, we're not about to throw him in a padded cell with a straitjacket on."

Steve said nothing, privately thinking that was exactly what Danny would  _want_  to happen.

"I understand Danny said he's been hearing voices."

Steve nodded mutely.

"I know people automatically associate hearing voices with severe mental illness, such as schizophrenia, psychosis, or manic depression, so it might seem pretty cataclysmic to you right now. But I want to reassure you that there are many possible explanations. I understand Danny took a large volume of a hallucinogenic drink?"

"He didn't  _take_ it. He wasn't exactly given a choice." Steve spat, aware he was being disproportionately defensive but unable to stop himself.

Gillespie nodded curtly. "My apologies. We know that modern drugs like LSD can cause a kind of flashback effect. People can 'trip' weeks, months or even years after actually abusing the drug. It is perfectly possible that this is the case here, although the long term effects of ingesting henbane are less well understood. Voices in one's head are simply an auditory hallucination- it could be that for all the drug is out of his system, the effects of it are 'echoing' I suppose you could say. Of course symptoms like hearing voices can also be brought on by severe stress, which there is no denying Danny has been under, both mentally and physically. It can be the mind's way of coping, of separating things out."

Steve blinked a couple of times, absorbing Gillespie's words. "Okay. So what can you do to help him?" he said.

Gillespie smiled again. "It's very likely this will resolve itself in time, as he gets stronger and his health continues to improve. Short term, the important thing is to keep him calm. We don't want him to jeopardise his physical recovery. We think it's best to keep him on a low level of sedation right now. We'll start him on a tranquilliser that he'll be able to continue to take when he'd discharged too. Tranquillisers have a cumulative effect and will help him cope and keep calm in the long term."

Steve stared at him in complete disbelief. "But..there must be something else you can do. Isn't there something you can give him that will actually get rid of this voice in his head? Make him better?"

The doctors exchanged a glance.

Gillespie cleared his throat. "Commander McGarrett, there's nothing per se that we can do to cure 'voice hearers' as they are known. Treatment revolves around helping a patient develop coping strategies. Talking therapy can help. For many years mental health professionals pushed the idea of ignoring internal voices. Things are very different now- it's not even thought of as something that necessarily  _needs_  a cure. It's just a difference in the human experience. In therapy we encourage a patient to actually interact with their voices, speak to them, try to find out why they are there, that type of thing. The most important thing is  _belief ._ A patient must learn to accept they are the stronger party- they don't have to act on any direction from their voice. Basically, if you believe the voice in your head is stronger than you, can control you, you  _can't_  cope. If you believe that you are stronger than your voice, if you make a stand against it, you  _can_ cope. The voices may stay, they may go, but the patient can learn to live with them. Does that make sense?"

Steve was incredulous. "So basically you're telling me it might go away by itself, otherwise he has to learn to live with it?"

Gillespie nodded hesitantly. "It is very early days, but essentially…yes."

"You know he's a cop, right? And he says he has a demon in his head telling him to kill people? How's he meant to live like that?" Steve was really struggling to keep his voice calm.

Gillespie nodded, acknowledging Steve's concern. "Statistically he is very unlikely to act on those instructions. We certainly don't admit people to psychiatric units unless there's a clear indication they could become violent. I realise there was an element of physicality about events today, but we believe that he was acting out of fear, not overt aggression. That shouldn't reoccur if we get him going with the tranquillisers today. And there's no reason he can't learn to function adequately even if his voice does stay with him. He  _might_  even continue in his current employment one day. I'll write a letter for him to give to his own doctor back home in Hawaii once he's ready to travel that will explain everything. Long term therapies would be better arranged over there."

Steve bit his lip, trying to keep a lid on his growing anger because everything they were saying just felt  _wrong_. He  _knew_ on some level they were making absolute sense, they knew what they were talking about. But it just wasn't  _enough._ He raised his voice- he couldn't help it. "And when the hell do you think that might be?! He had a total breakdown less than an hour ago."

Gillespie frowned at him. "Commander, remember where you are! As I said, the effect of the tranquilliser is cumulative. He should be feeling more in control in a few days- we can take it from there. I know it's a lot to take in. Please, feel free to use this room for a while to gather your thoughts."

Steve sat feeling more than a little shell-shocked as the two men walked out. He didn't know what he had been expecting. He had just had this notion that if he got his partner back in one piece physically, everything else would fall into place. He would be fine. He could be fixed. But it seemed it simply wasn't the case. The thought of his in-your-face, larger-than-life partner wandering around indefinitely in a drugged haze was just a bit more than he could bear.

…

When Danny awoke several hours later, he wouldn't meet Steve's eye, wouldn't say a word to him no matter what Steve tried to speak about. He looked vague and distant.

Steve felt physically sick. He knew it was partly a result of the cocktail of drugs his partner been dosed with to ensure he stayed calm. He also knew so much more was going on. Danny was scared and Danny was angry. Angry with  _him_ for bringing him back at all.

Mr Gillespie came to speak to Danny, to tell him what they had told Steve. Using soft, gentle tones he explained why they thought he might be hearing voices and how they proposed to help him cope until the voices saw fit to cease, if that ever happened. Steve sat and listened, stomach tying itself in knots, watching Danny carefully and trying to gauge his reaction.

Danny said nothing. He lay, white as a sheet, his face looking gaunt. He nodded, once, when Mr Gillespie asked him if he understood.

Steve watched the man as he retreated, then turned cautious eyes on his partner who was staring blankly at the ceiling. He dropped a hand on Danny's arm and gave it a gentle squeeze. "Hey. You okay, buddy?" There was no response. He closed his eyes for a moment, then tried again. "Danny? Talk to me, please," he begged.

Danny finally turned his head towards Steve, still not quite meeting his eye. His expression was cold. Scared. " _Why_  did you do it?" came the harsh whisper.

"Danny, please, come on. I  _couldn't_ leave you there. You were sick, you were confused. You….you still are buddy. It's gonna get better. I promise, I'll…" he tailed off, because Danny was shaking his head, more and more emphatically, then began knocking the heel of his hand against his forehead.

Steve grabbed his wrist. "Danny, knock it off. Please! You just need to give it time."

Danny laughed. He actually laughed. "Time?" he hissed. "It's a  _demon._ It's real. It's  _not_ just a voice. The demon is  _real_. I saw it go in. It  _hurt._ " His face twisted in pain and Steve's heart lurched as a single tear ran down his cheek.

Danny looked right at him then and Steve inhaled sharply as he saw the desperation in his face.

"Please," Danny whispered, voice quavering. "You have to believe me! It's real! They want me to  _talk to it?_ It's a fucking  _demon!_   _It's real._  I can't…I can't control it. Steve, I'm  _scared._ " He looked away again, squeezing his eyes shut.

Heart pounding, Steve pulled his chair closer, right up by the bed. In that split second he made a decision. He  _knew_ the demon couldn't be real, there was just no way. But it didn't matter. It was real to Danny and Danny needed a friend, an ally. So the demon would just have to be real to Steve as well. He felt a stab of guilt. It felt like a deception. But he just  _knew_ if Danny thought he didn't believe him he would lose him as surely as if he really had left him behind. He had to do it, it was as simple as that. He had to make things right. He would be whatever Danny needed him to be.

He placed his hands on Danny's shoulders. "Okay, okay, easy Danno. I believe you. I do." He slid a hand up to Danny's cheek and gently moved his face so he had to meet Steve's eyes. "We're going to find a way to sort this together, yeah? I know I brought you back, I know you didn't want to come and I'm sorry. I screwed up. So now it's my job to help you, yeah? Whatever it takes."

Danny looked deep into Steve's eyes. He reached up and grabbed Steve's wrist, digging his fingers in,  _hard._ He nodded, then his gaze intensified, blue eyes piercing though to Steve's soul.

"Promise me something."

"Sure."

"He said they won't lock me up. They  _should_ lock me up. I'm  _dangerous._ I need you to promise you'll kill me if you have to. If it takes over. Please. Don't let me hurt anyone."

The words Danny pushed out in his painful, rasping whisper cut Steve to the bone. He stared at his partner in shock. He bit his lip, suppressing his knee-jerk response. He gave him the answer he needed even though he had to choke it out past the lump in his throat.

"I promise."

TBC


	18. Chapter 18

CHAPTER 18

The tranquillisers helped.

Danny was calmer, less intense. He stopped talking about demons altogether. In fact he didn't say very much at all. Didn't look anyone in the eye, not even Steve, not even when Steve tried to prod him into interaction with gifts of pineapples and atrocious CDs. It all fell a bit flat. But Steve allowed himself to hope that the medication was really helping. That Danny was silently sorting through things in his head, realising he  _could_  cope. Accepting his demon was  _not_ real after all.

The medical staff got back to their priority tasks of ensuring the infection in his leg was beaten and building up his strength. Physiotherapy sessions, twice daily, had got him moving a little more each day until he was up on his feet, firstly with the aid of crutches then just a stick. Physically, he was coming on in leaps and bounds.

Only six weeks after time spat them back out at Brodgar, since Danny almost died, he was once more deemed ready to leave hospital.

The dressings on his leg would still need changing daily, he had a sheet of daily exercises for his leg to keep him going between physical therapy sessions and he had enough pills to take with him to stock a pharmacy, but he was getting out.

When arrangements were being made for travelling back to Hawaii, the original bookings having been cancelled after the psychological setback, Danny had one of his now-rare verbal moments.

Steve was telling him something mundane about flight connections when Danny turned to him and made actual eye contact.

"I'm not going home."

Steve felt a knot forming in his gut. "Danno…..we can't stay here indefinitely. We  _need_  to go home! There are people waiting for us. Gracie's waiting for her Danno, buddy."

Danny looked away. "You go. I'm not going home. You  _know_ I can't go home."

…

They didn't go home.

Steve had tried every angle he could- logical argument, bribery, even gentle threats- but Danny wouldn't budge. He wouldn't elaborate but he wouldn't budge.

A few frantic phone calls later, the journey was on hold yet again and Steve had secured the use of a holiday cottage on one of the outer islands of Orkney- Hoy- for a few weeks. It was Miller's- he said his wife had inherited it from some random relative and kept it. She thought it might be good for 'romantic weekends' for them. (Miller had snorted mirthlessly when he had told Steve about it), but they mostly let it out to holidaymakers. It was apparently sitting empty right then and he had offered it to them instantly.

So, on the day Danny was finally discharged, Steve drove them southwards from Kirkwall, bound for the tiny ferry that carried cars over to Hoy. Danny stared out of the window the whole way. Steve kept glancing at him. He looked thin and pale. And decidedly nauseous.

Hoy was very different from the Orkney mainland, dominated by steep hills bordered by high sandstone cliffs, the wild waters of the Pentland Firth crashing around their feet. There was little in the way of farmland, most of the island being taken up by heather moorland. It was beautiful but it gave Steve the creeps, just a bit. It reminded him of the Orkney they had seen on their nightmare journey.

The cottage, as it turned out, was awesome.

It was a tiny, stone-built traditional croft house located part way up a hill with no other houses in sight. It had a kick-ass view, a log-burning stove and a huge flat-screen TV with a full satellite sports and movie package. It was man-retreat heaven.

Steve had a root around the house while Danny got the TV going. A big grin came to his face as he investigated the kitchen- the freezer was full of steak and pizza and the fridge was full of beer. He was glad he'd revised his original opinion of Miller.

An hour later, Steve and Danny were slouched side by side on the sofa watching some random soccer game, fire burning, legs up on the coffee table, stomachs full of steak and clutching ice-cold beers (Danny shouldn't of course, but Steve figured one wouldn't hurt. It was a celebration of sorts after all).

Steve shot Danny a goofy smile. Danny looked away.

….

Several days went by without a hitch. Lazy mornings, plenty of steak and the odd beer, slow walks in the sun, Danny leaning heavily on his walking stick as they climbed the hill behind the house to the cliff-top beyond. They would sit there in the heather, gazing out across the rolling waters of the Pentland Firth towards the Scottish mainland. Steve liked to peer cautiously over the cliff-edge, watching the waves smash against them 150m below. Danny stayed back, glaring at him like he thought he was insane.

Danny looked a little better- not so pale anyway- but there was still a complete absence of the easy banter that had been the trademark of their relationship before. Steve wasn't sure how much of it was the effects of the tranquillisers and how much was due to whatever was going on in Danny's head.

For all Danny's side of their conversations was mostly limited to unsociable grunts, Steve was well aware his partner was glad he was there. In fact he felt a little like he had become some kind of security blanket for him. He might not want to speak to him, but if Steve left the room for more than a few minutes, Danny would have the heel of his hand jammed against his forehead by the time he returned, distress apparently creeping into his drug-numbed mind. It left Steve in no doubt Danny was still feeling scared and vulnerable, tranquillisers or no tranquillisers. But he trusted Steve and his very presence seemed to reassure him in some way.

Steve didn't mind Danny's moody clinging. He had come so close to losing him he felt pretty uncomfortable himself when Danny was out of his sight.

If there ever was a time Danny needed his best friend by his side this was it, and Steve was in it for the long haul. But it still made him sad. His Danny was not needy or insecure. His Danny was strong and loud and irritating and funny.

Steve missed him.

….

There came a point when Steve decided he had to push.

He didn't really want to, he didn't think Danny was ready. But they couldn't stay where they were for ever. The safe bubble he'd created for Danny was going to burst sooner or later- one or more of several factors would see to that.

Steve was running out of excuses to give to Danny's family. They hadn't really expected to get to  _speak_  to Danny, not have a proper conversation anyway- he had barely been talking when they left- but they had planned to skype him. They wanted to  _see_  him, expected him to want to see them. They at least wanted to tell him that they were thinking of him, that they missed him.

Danny wouldn't entertain it. Whenever Steve contacted any of them, or even any of the team, Danny would leave the room.

Steve had, of course, told them Danny had something of a mental breakdown as his memories started to kick back in. He couldn't lie about that. He told them that Danny needed a week or two to get his head together and recoup before travelling. What he  _couldn't_  bring himself to tell them was that Danny didn't want to see them because he was scared he might  _kill_ them.

Now, inevitably, questions were being asked and it would only be a matter of time before some or all of them reappeared. Steve didn't want to think how Danny would cope with that.

Then there was Steve's job. Danny was OK- he was on sick leave. Steve  _had_  been fine. It wasn't like he'd taken a lot of leave since the taskforce was set up- a couple of days here and there for unsanctioned rescues and personal vendettas, the odd week for SEAL training exercises. He figured he had to have accrued a good few months' worth of vacation time. Chin, Kono and Lou were more than capable of handling anything that came in, but the team was two men down. They were being stretched. It wasn't fair.

Plus Steve knew taking this much time off on compassionate grounds was really pushing it from the governor's point of view. At some point there was a good chance the man was going to start delivering ultimatums to him.

So Steve knew he  _had_  to raise the thorny question of 'What Happens Next?'. He waited, picked his moment carefully.

It came one night when the rain was drumming against the glass of their cottage windows. It was late- it was actually dark outside, which was a measure of just how long they had been in Orkney by then. The nights were slowly drawing in, an inevitable slide towards the long dark nights of the winter- the pay-off for the endless summer days.

The fire was on again and some crappy movie was dying a death quietly in the corner of the room. Danny had not long woken up from a nap on the couch. He looked unusually relaxed. Steve decided to push, just a bit, to see what would happen.

"Danny, can we talk?" he said, his voice soft and low.

Danny grunted.

Steve rolled his eyes. "Danny, I know your head's a mess right now. That's okay, it's totally understandable. But we need to think about what we're going to do next. We can't stay here indefinitely."

"I can't go home." Danny replied, suddenly stared intently at the television.

"You said that buddy. I get that you don't want to go home, I really do, but..."

Danny jumped to his feet, distress ramping up exponentially. He turned to face Steve, still avoiding eye contact. He put his hands on his head. "You go! You  _have_  a life. I don't want to keep you from it. Maybe I'll feel better soon. Maybe I'll follow, you know, in a few weeks."

Steve screwed up his face at the ridiculous statement and shook his head vehemently. "What? Danny, take it easy. There's no way I'm leaving you on your own here! You can forget that right now!"

Danny started hobbling to and fro in the small room, hands now gesticulating wildly. "I  _want_  you to go. I've…I've been thinking. I need you to look after Grace now I…I can't. And you…you need to get back to 5-0. The team need you. It's not fair on them, you being away so long. I'm not the only crazy person in the world- you should be back home, shooting some of the rest of them."

Steve blinked a few times- it was the most Danny had said for such a long time that it took him by surprise. "I'm not leaving you, Danny. That's final…..Anyway, what would you do here by yourself?"

Danny shrugged, turning away from him. "You know. Write a book. Take drugs. Try not to kill anyone. The usual."

"Danny…."

Danny cut in, plainly not wanting to hear sympathetic platitudes. He started pacing erratically and Steve eyed his bad leg with concern.

"They should have locked me up. I wish they'd locked me up. Why wouldn't they lock me up? Seriously, they wonder why mentally ill people commit murder, do you have to actually  _kill_  someone before they'll lock you up?"

Steve frowned at that, because up to that moment Danny had insisted his demon was real and he wasn't ill at all. "Are  _you_  mentally ill?" he ventured cautiously.

Danny turned back to him "No! Well, yes, I'm pretty fucking depressed." He finally looked Steve in the eye, just for a fleeting moment. "Can you blame me? I have a demon in my head, Steven. There is a fucking _demon_  in my head. It wants to  _kill_ people. It wants to kill  _you._ Right now! You really should go."

Steve stared at him for a moment, sick realisation dawning that Danny really hadn't made any progress at all. He set his jaw, determined not to show his disappointment, determined to continue to be the one strong constant in Danny's life. "I'm not leaving you." His statement was calm and controlled.

Danny started shaking his head. "You don't need to do this, you don't need to be here."

There was a hitch in his voice that had Steve jumping to his feet. He put an arm around Danny's shoulders and led him back over towards the sofa. "OK, OK, calm down buddy, come on, sit down before you fall down."

He pulled Danny down beside him on the sofa, keeping his arm around his shoulders. "Danny, listen, I'm not going anywhere and I'm not going to make you do anything you don't want to. I'm just trying to think about a way forwards. That's all. And you need to tell me if there's anything more I can do to help you."

Danny shook his head, jamming his shaking hands between his thighs self-consciously. "I don't know."

"OK. Just try to keep calm. Let's just think about what _might_  help. Have the tranquillisers made a difference?"

"I guess. A bit."

"Okay, that's good. It's looked to me like you feel calmer anyway, so that's good. So maybe the other stuff Gillespie suggested might help too. You know, talking to…it. Letting it know you're in control, that kind of thing."

Danny jerked back to his feet, shaking Steve's arm off. "But I'm not sick! I've  _not_  got 'voices' in my head. It's  _real_!" He was shouting now.

Steve stood up too, holding his hands out low and wide like Danny was some kind of wild animal he had cornered. He was in two minds, unsure if he was going too far or if just maybe this pressure was what Danny needed to begin to face up to things and move on. His nature was fight not flight so he took a chance and kept on pushing.

He took a deep breath, keeping his voice steady for all his volume was now raised. "OK, OK, I'm not questioning that. I  _said_ I believed you, didn't I? So it's a real demon! But who's to say that any number of people who hear voices don't have real demons in their heads too, Danny? Maybe every last one of them does. Who's to say this psychological shit won't help anyway? You say the tranquillisers helped a bit. Right? Remember how freaked out you were before you started taking the pills? Maybe, just maybe, the other stuff might help too. Please, please can we just try? I'll stay with you, I'll help you."

Danny marched right over to Steve and yelled right in his face. "No! No! I don't want to talk to it! Don't you get it? I'm spending all my time trying  _not_  to talk to it!" He took a few harsh, sobbing breaths then staggered back from Steve and turned to the wall, slumping forward and pressing his forehead against the cool stone.

When his voice came again it was quiet and desperate and strained with emotion. "Steve, it's strong, it's  _so_  strong and I only feel like there's anything left of me at all when I have my back to it. If I actually face it, try to have it out, I'm scared I'm going to lose control altogether. I'm scared I'm going to hurt someone, Steve. How can I ever go near my daughter again? I don't trust myself with Grace. I don't trust myself at all!"

Steve had heard enough. He walked over to him, took him by the shoulders and gently turned him. He wrapped his arms around him and pushed his head down against his shoulder.

Danny broke, ragged sobs tearing through him as Steve held him close.

"Easy Danny, I'm sorry. It's going to be okay, we'll find a way to sort it. I'm sorry." Steve murmured, rocking him gently, filled with regret at having pushed Danny to  _this_. He had known Danny was far from right but he was reeling at the apparent continued intensity of Danny's personal hell.

He resolved to phone Gillespie first thing in the morning for advice and hopefully more help, better drugs,  _something._

….

Steve was woken in the middle of the night by the sound of wind-driven rain beating against the livingroom window. He sat up, then double took as he realised Danny was no longer asleep on the sofa beside him.

He looked around the room then jumped to his feet, heart pounding.

Danny was gone.

TBC


	19. Chapter 19

CHAPTER 19

"Danny! Danny!" Steve yelled as he ran frantically from room to room in the small cottage, before tearing the front door open and taking three great strides out into the pouring rain. He spun round, calling Danny's name again, but the night was pitch black and he could see nothing.

He stood, breathing heavily, straining to hear over the whistling wind as the rain ran down his face, into his eyes.

He heard nothing.

He ran back into the house. Danny's shoes were behind the front door, his jacket was hanging on its peg.

He pulled his phone out of his pocket and dialled Danny's number only to hear his cell ringing from amongst the cushions on the livingroom sofa.

"Danny, what have you done?" he muttered, dialling Inspector Miller's number. As he spoke to him, giving the information Miller needed to pass onto police and coastguards, Steve paced around the house. His eyes roved aimlessly as he absently hoped Danny was going to magically reappear. He cursed himself for letting down his guard when Danny was so low and emotional.

When his partner had finally fallen asleep, leaning up against him on the sofa, Steve had let himself relax. He had dozed off, his arm still round Danny's shoulders. They had both been exhausted and he hadn't expected Danny to stir until morning, let alone  _this._  But Danny was depressed, Danny was scared and Danny thought he had effectively lost the one thing that meant the most to him in the world- his little girl. Why had Steve let himself sleep?!

His gaze fell on the knife block by the kitchen sink. His breath caught in his throat. One was missing. He had put it away after he'd washed up, he was certain.

He barked out a terse farewell to Miller then walked up to the sink and peered in. It wasn't there, or on the draining board.

Danny had gone out into the wind and rain with nothing on his feet, wearing only a t-shirt and jeans, carrying a knife.

"Shit. SHIT!" Steve yelled as he ran back to the door. He pulled on his walking boots and his jacket, then grabbed a torch from a hook beside the door. He strode out into the night.

"Danny!" he yelled into the wind.

He hesitated, then turned the beam of his torch towards the hill behind him. The cliffs. If Danny had gone out hell-bent on self-destruction, there was a good chance he would have taken their regular route up to the cliffs. It would have been familiar, navigable in the dark.

Steve wasted no time. He pounded his way up the narrow footpath to the clifftop, feet slipping and sliding on the wet ground as he ran. He prayed as he ran to anyone who might be listening, prayed that Danny hadn't decided he just couldn't take anymore. Prayed he had just gone out for some fresh air. Or that he would at least stop to think about what he was doing. After everything that had happened, everything they had been through, it couldn't end like this.

He pressed on, breath burning in his chest and rain blurring his vision.

The wind was coming right off the sea and ,as Steve hit the top of the hill and headed down to the cliff edge, it hit him fiercely, pushing him back like a living thing. He staggered to a halt, fighting for balance, and cast the beam of his torch around desperately hoping Danny would be there. That he hadn't gone over the edge.

He couldn't see anything, and he eased himself closer to the precipitous drop, going down onto hands and knees to peer over the very edge. He shone his beam over but the drop was too great. He couldn't even make out the rocks and the sea at the base. He could  _hear_ the sea raging down below. If Danny had gone over, even if he hadn't hit the rocks, he would have had no chance.

Steve turned back from the sea and scrubbed a hand down his face, trying to clear the water from his eyes. He looked around uncertainly, a helpless terror gripping him. He couldn't quite believe this was happening.

He wasn't sure what, but something drew him further along the cliff-edge, further than they had ever gone on their walks. He walked at first, then started to run, buffeted mercilessly by gusts of wind that made him slide and stagger.

And there he was. A white figure illuminated in the beam of his torch, dressed only in t-shirt and jeans. He was kneeling motionless two or three metres back from the deadly drop, facing out to sea.

"Danny!" he shouted, trying to be heard over the wind. He jogged over to him, relief washing through his system. He crouched down in front of him and put a hand on his shoulder. "Danny? Jesus, you had me worried, buddy. What you doing up here?"

Danny's eyes were shut and he didn't respond. Steve frowned. Remembering the knife, he felt a renewed surge of panic. He grabbed each of Danny's arms in turn, turning them over in his hands. But Danny's skin was undamaged. Steve glanced around for the knife for a few moments. He spotted it on the ground a couple of feet away and picked it up, sliding it into the back of his belt. He refocusing on his friend. His clothes were soaked through and he was shivering violently.

"Danny, you're freezing. Come on, let's go back." He unzipped his jacket and pulled it off, laying it over Danny's shoulders. It flapped in the wind. Steve put his torch in his mouth to free up his hands, then started trying to manoeuver one of Danny's arms into a sleeve.

"Steve?" Danny's voice was barely a whisper, almost inaudible.

"Yeah, it's just me, buddy." he replied as he fought with the garment in the gusting wind.

"You got the knife?" Danny sounded like he was gritting his teeth.

"Yeah, don't worry, I've got it." Steve finally had one sleeve on. He started on Danny's second arm.

"Steve. You've got to kill me. It won't let me do it myself. I tried."

Danny's quiet words hit Steve like a gut punch, for all he could barely hear them over the wind. He stopped what he was doing to look at his partner. Danny's eyes were closed, squeezed tight, and his was jaw clenched shut.

"Danny..." Steve started, then hesitated. He felt wrung out, exhausted. He had tried  _so_  hard to help Danny. He hadn't questioned his friend's judgement, he'd supported him in every way possible. It simply hadn't worked. It had come to  _this. S_ uddenly he realised it was time to try to make his partner face the truth. Try to make him understand the demon wasn't real. He was  _never_ going to move on until that happened.

"You promised." Danny  _shouted_ now. "I can't hold it back anymore. Do it now!  _Please_!" Danny had now bitten his lip so hard blood was dripping down his chin.

Steve gripped him by the shoulders, tight, and shook him, hard. "Danny, that's enough! Listen to me. I know it seems real but  _it's not real_. It's  _not._ I know that's hard to accept but you have to try. Danny,  _look at me_."

Steve opened his mouth to keep talking, keep reasoning with his partner, but then all of a sudden everything about Danny changed.

It was as though someone had flicked a switch. The trembling ceased abruptly and Danny opened his eyes, staring straight at Steve. As their eyes met, Steve's jaw dropped, the torch rolling out of his mouth onto the ground. Danny's gaze was cold and hard, the fury in it made more menacing by the unpleasant grin that suddenly twisted his face. He didn't look like Danny anymore. He looked like someone else altogether.

"Danny…?" Steve's mouth went dry.

Without warning, Danny threw himself at Steve, grasping his shoulders as they both tumbled towards the cliff edge, their struggles illuminated by the light of the discarded torch.

Shocked, Steve wrapped his arms around Danny's waist. Somehow, he got his legs underneath him and tried to push up, tried desperately to lift Danny bodily towards safer ground. But Danny began to punch his head and neck, mean and merciless, fighting as wildly as the wind that whipped around them. Steve saw stars as a blow hit the side of his head and he fell back down to his knees.

Somehow he managed to keep the fingers of one hand tangled firmly in Danny' s T-shirt. Gasping for breath, he hauled himself back up to his feet, pulling on the material, then staggered backwards, trying to drag Danny away from that cliff edge by his clothes.

Danny held fast, unmoving. He grabbed hold of Steve's hand and bent it back, breaking his grip effortlessly, then took hold of his wrist with both hands and  _threw_ him bodily into the air. By a sheer fluke Steve was propelled further along the cliff top, not closer to the treacherous drop. He rolled as he landed, decades of combat training coming to the fore. He came back up into a crouch and stayed there, chest heaving and eyes wide as he looked over at Danny in utter disbelief.

He was silhouetted now, standing motionless between Steve and the torch, hands out to his sides, fingers flexing.

Steve knew Danny and he knew Danny could fight well. But this was different. His strength was pure and raw. Steve  _knew_ that strength. He  _remembered_  it. He had felt it at Brodgar when Danny first attacked him. He had thought his memory had magnified it, that the dark and the fear had played tricks on his mind. He had been wrong. Everything about this felt  _wrong._ Steve's brain stuttered, refusing to allow him to reach the conclusion that now seemed so clear. It  _couldn't_  be real.

Danny came at Steve again before Steve had a chance to gather his thoughts. Steve tried to trip him, dropping low at the last minute and sweeping his legs around in front of him. Danny jumped, neatly avoiding him and landing on him,  _hard_ , knocking him onto his back. He straddled Steve's chest and pinned his arms to his sides with his thighs.

The impact knocked the breath clear out of Steve. He didn't have time to react to the hands closing around his throat until it was too late. Air cut off entirely, he tried to fight, his legs pushing against the wet ground, uncoordinated and ineffective. The edges of his vision blackened and he could hear his blood pounding in his ears, drowning out the howling of the wind.

Then Danny let go. Steve tried to grab at his own throat as he gasped desperately for breath, but he couldn't move. His vision was hazy and he realised he was about to pass out. He felt hands on his belt and looked up only to see the kitchen knife was now in Danny's hands. The light from Steve's torch glinted off the edge of the blade.

Danny raised it above his head, both hands on the handle, tip of the blade aimed at Steve's throat.

"Danny!" Steve croaked. "Danny, stop!"

Danny froze, silhouetted in the torchlight.

"Danny please, this isn't you. It's not you! You don't have to do this." Steve pleaded with his friend in desperation, "Please, you've got to fight it. Tell it... tell it it can't control you. Danny I know you're scared of it but you have to try,  _please_."

Steve saw the white of Danny's teeth and realised he was smiling. His heart sank. "Danny. You're my best friend. You can't let it do this. Please. You have to fight it." he rasped, voice breaking.

He saw Danny's muscles tense, saw the knife come down towards his neck. He closed his eyes, he couldn't help it.

But the impact didn't come.

He opened his eyes in time to see Danny lurch to his feet and stagger away from him, back towards the cliff edge, clutching his head with both hands.

Steve wanted to help him, he wanted to pull him back to safety, but he couldn't move. He could only watch, blink away the rain and shout Danny's name desperately into the screaming wind as his partner held his head between his hands and fell to his knees, skidding towards the cliff edge.

He could hear Danny shouting, he had to be  _screaming_  out loud but Steve couldn't make out his words as his voice was torn away by the wind.

Steve managed to move his hand, extending it out towards his stricken friend. He rolled over onto his front and tried to drag himself closer but sagged helplessly back down onto the heather again. He saw Danny collapse over on his side on the very edge of the cliff. He curled up, still clutching his head in apparent agony.

Steve's vision chose that moment to white out.

Then everything seemed to be moving, spinning around him. Everything went weird, swirling and pulsating manically. He could see things, bad things, wrong things, things no one should know about.

Something rose up from where Danny lay in agony, curled up on his side. Something that moved in a dizzying vortex of colours. It turned to Steve, red eyes glowing. He knew that face, he'd seen it before. He'd seen it on Blue Eye's tunic. He felt its heat, its fury.

He thought he heard Danny shouting again, but then everything went black.

TBC


	20. Chapter 20

CHAPTER 20

Danny came round slowly. His head hurt, badly. He was shivering, cold to the bone. He had no idea where he was, what had happened.

But something was new. Something was different.

He felt at peace.

He lay quietly, curled up on his side watching the sea far below him, gazing at it as it shifted and moved like a living thing. Dawn was breaking and the pinks and oranges of early morning were reflected in its rolling surface. The calls of a lonely seagull drifted down to him, piercing the whisper of the gentle breeze.

He thought absently that there was something he should be doing, but he had no idea what.

Then memory hit him like a sledgehammer.

The demon. The fight.  _Steve!_

"Steve!" he tried to shout, but it came out a hoarse whisper. He tried to sit up, then cried out and squeezed his eyes shut as a bolt of  _agony_ shot through his head. He clutched at it until the pain faded slowly, then pulled his hands away. There was blood on them, congealed and sticky.

He looked up again, then gasped in shock as it finally registered that he was inches from the sheer cliff edge. He scrambled backwards in panic, stones pushed by his feet clattering over the edge to the sea far below.

He sat for a moment, shaky, breathing harshly, then turned to look behind him.

His heart leapt into his mouth. "No! Steve?"

Steve was lying face-down in the heather a short distance away, one arm extended towards him. His face was bruised and bloody. He wasn't moving.

"Oh God. Steve!?" Danny crawled over to him on shaking arms and legs.

He knelt beside him, quaking in fear as he reached for his neck. He saw the swollen marks in the shape of his own fingers. His face screwed up with horror and guilt. "Sorry, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry" he breathed out.

He closed his eyes in relief as he felt the strong pulse.

He moved his hand to stroke the bruised cheek gently, only to pull back in shock as Steve came awake with a jerk, eyes wild, yelling "No! Stop! Get away from me!" in a hoarse voice.

Steve hauled himself away from Danny's touch and dragged himself up onto his knees, then froze, clutching at his throat with a moan, eyes squeezed shut.

"Steve I'm sorry, I'm so sorry I...  _Shit!_ " Danny put a hesitant hand out towards him then thought better of it. He dropped it limply down onto his leg then sat, head hanging low in grief and shame. He shivered again, his brief adrenaline rush dissipating and leaving him cold and numb.

As he knelt there, more and more of what had happened came back to him. The pain and the fear and the ever-present, inescapable  _evil_  that had been in his head.

From the midst of the agony and the chaos of his captivity that  _thing_ had come from nowhere, from amongst the meaningless hallucinations, and it had torn its way into his mind. It had  _done_  things _. Made_  him do things. It had been terrifying. It still was.

He could remember the whispering- persistent, impossible to shut out. The feeling of being  _violated_ and controlled by something moulded from pure, unadulterated hate.

He had tried so hard to keep it at bay. When he had slowly, so slowly, dragged himself back to consciousness at the hospital, he had known it was still there from the start. He had felt so  _angry_ with Steve for risking everything, risking  _Grace_ for goodness' sake, by bringing him back. But its whispers had been quiet to begin with. He had begun to think maybe he could ignore it, just live with it there in the background. He had begun to feel glad to be back, away from that hideous place.

That was until the day Gracie left to go home, because the demon  _wanted_  her. It had plans for her, plans that had made Danny want to vomit. It needed her close. It had reared up in his head, screaming, punishing him until he threw himself from his bed in a futile attempt to escape. He had thought at that moment he would have to stay away from his baby girl forever and he had genuinely and completely wished he was dead.

In the days that followed, Steve's persistence in staying with him, in  _believing_ him, had been the only thing that kept him sane as that  _thing_  battered constantly against his mind.

Then, the previous night, everything came to a head. He had been low and he had been weak. He had let his concentration slip. It had risen up and taken over, just as it had thousands of years earlier as those men tortured him, pouring the hideous broth endlessly down his throat without mercy.

It wanted him to kill Steve, stab him as he lay sleeping. He wouldn't, but it was  _strong_. He did the only thing he could-he ran. He had intended to throw himself straight off the cliffs but it had stopped him. It had forced him back into a corner of his own mind before he could take that last deadly step. He had been forced to relinquish control, to watch, once more a passenger in his own body.

And in the end, it was Steve's desperate pleading, the look of fear and horror in his eyes as he was about to die at the hands of his best friend, that gave Danny the strength to face his demon and make a stand.

Somehow,  _somehow_  he had driven it out. It had dug its claws in, fighting to the last to stay inside until his head felt like it was going to explode. But it had lost. And now it was gone- he was sure of it. Knew somehow he would  _feel_ it if it was still out there, watching him.

He had won. Somehow. He should be happy, relieved. But the things he had done. The way he had behaved….

He dropped his head into his hands, filled with shame and certain no one could forgive him. No one  _should_ forgive him. Certain they would think he was weak and pathetic and  _dangerous._ Steve had to hate him now. How could he not?

Danny felt completely and entirely alone.

He started as he felt a familiar hand drop onto his shoulder. "Danny?"

He looked up and there was Steve, his face close to his own. He was bruised and he was bleeding and his teeth chattered with cold but he didn't seem to notice. His slate blue eyes were filled with concern. That was it. No hate, no recrimination, no disgust. Just concern. His other hand came up and gently touched Danny where blood still ran sluggishly from his body- his nose, his ears, the corner of his mouth. Steve looked away for a second, reaching for something, then he was tucking his discarded jacket around Danny's shoulders.

Steve didn't hate him.

Danny sobbed. He couldn't help it. The culmination of weeks and weeks of pain and fear was just too much. He was entirely overcome with guilt and relief and exhaustion and  _disbelief_ that Steve was still there, still had his back. He found himself crying wretchedly.

Steve wrapped his long arms around his friend and huffed out a sob of his own into Danny's neck. "Shit, Danno, are you okay?" Steve's voice trembled with emotion.

Danny didn't even try to answer. He let his friend hold him as he fought for control of his emotions, because there was nothing else he could do. Steve stroked his back, whispered reassurance to him.

"I'm sorry" Danny sobbed eventually, voice muffled against Steve's shoulder.

"Danny stop. It wasn't you. It's not your fault. And I'm fine."

Danny laughed mirthlessly at that, shaking his head slightly. He didn't know what to say, couldn't find the words to tell Steve how much he wished it hadn't happened, how he regretted not having been strong enough to stand up to it sooner. How much it meant to him that Steve still even cared after everything that had happened.

There was no way to convey everything he felt, so Danny said the best thing he could think of, voice still hitching with emotion. "It's gone. I'm so sorry but it's gone now!"

Steve pulled back, staring deep into his eyes, surprise and doubt on his face. "Are you sure?"

Danny nodded mutely.

Steve frowned, appraising him carefully, uncertainty still clear in his expression.

"Danny, what the hell happened?" He said eventually, voice filled with trepidation. "I think…I think I remember seeing….. something. A face? But I must have been half out, it didn't seem real. Danny….was it real?"

Danny couldn't bring himself to answer. Now it appeared to be over, he found he didn't want to acknowledge the demon's existence out loud. He realised he didn't want his friend to have to live with the knowledge that terrors like that really existed. That was one thing he should carry on his own. He  _needed_  to. After everything Steve had done for him, no way could he rob Steve of his own peace of mind like that. He looked down at the ground, mouth worked noiselessly as he searched helplessly for a way to respond, because he didn't want to lie.

Steve must have sensed his distress. He pulled Danny back in towards him, tucking his head in against his shoulder and holding it there. "Okay, it's okay, buddy, it doesn't matter. We're good. Everything's good. We just need to get warm. We both need to get warm. We should try to head back. It's freaking freezing!"

Danny nodded, then closed his eyes, suddenly exhausted.

An image of his daughter came into his head. He almost pushed it back down, a knee jerk reaction bourn of weeks of trying to protect her from  _it_. But no one pawed at her, no one leered at her. No one told him to  _do_ terrible things to her. He smiled, free to  _think_ about her for the first time in what felt like years. Her smiling face filled him with a warmth that had been absent since this hell had started.

"Steve," he whispered, "I'm ready to see Gracie now."

And that, as it turned out, was the best, sweetest thing he could say. Steve hugged him tight, pulling the coat around both of them. Danny relaxed into the embrace.

Danny felt Steve grinning stupidly against his shoulder and he couldn't help but do the same. The demon was gone. And for whatever crazy reason because he sure as hell didn't deserve it, Steve still loved him. He knew if Steve did, his family would too. Nothing else mattered.

The sound of voices calling their names made them turn sharply. A line of figures in florescent coats was weaving its way up the hillside in the distance. Help had finally found them.

They were going home.

TBC


	21. Chapter 21

CHAPTER 21

Two weeks later everything was weirdly normal.

Danny and Steve were sitting together on the chairs by Steve's beach, watching Grace play in the sea with Kono. Lou and Chin were busy arguing over the finer points of grilling meat up on the lanai.

It was good to be home.

Steve turned to Danny, looking at him with an appraising eye. He was still a little pale, but his face was filling out again. He looked better. There was still a light dressing on his thigh and the shadows of bruises on his face. Steve's own bruises were worse, he realised, thanks to the battle on the cliff-top.

Danny's psyche still worried him. It was hard to accept that he had gone from being apparently borderline insane to essentially fine.

Danny was still a touch withdrawn and pretty emotional. That was understandable. He knew his partner was still deeply shaken by everything that had happened. He was troubled with illogical guilt over Selena's death and over hurting Steve, no matter how much Steve told him it wasn't his fault. Steve got it though- he was still plagued by his own guilt too. Nothing but time could really help them there.

However, Danny no longer needed tranquillisers and he was certainly not demanding to be thrown in a padded cell. He was no longer completely introverted and evasive. He was talking, smiling, laughing and complaining. He was well on his way to being Danny again.

Steve still didn't really understand what had happened on that cliff top- his memories were messed up and vague. Danny was pretty keen to avoid talking about it.

Steve didn't want to push him. He knew it had  _seemed_ completely real to his partner and he didn't want Danny to feel that his judgement was being questioned again, especially when he was still so fragile. But, on the other hand, he  _hated_ the idea of Danny living in fear of something which could never have existed. For once, he just wasn't sure of the best way to protect him.

But what had really happened? Steve was certain that Danny had been confused, had had a breakdown after the utter hell he had been through, most likely because of the pressure Steve had laid on him himself. His partner had probably thought it was the demon itself he was fighting on the cliff, not Steve at all. Then he had simply found the strength to face the controlling voice in his head, just as the psychiatrist had suggested. Somehow, he had vanquished it. Somehow.

Although there was the blood that had flowed from Danny's ears and nose, of course. That was weird. He didn't think he had seen Danny hit his head on anything. But it must have happened, maybe after Steve had passed out. That was a reasonable explanation.

The nagging doubts re-emerged, never far from the surface. He recalled a face, red eyed. He could almost  _feel_ the fury it had radiated. He remembered Danny's incredible strength.

But he didn't quite trust his own memories. And he so didn't _want_  to believe the demon had been real because that would be nothing short of terrifying. But if time travel was possible, who was he to say demons couldn't exist?

The chain of disturbing thoughts continued down their inevitable, well-worn path. If it was real, where had it gone? Worse still, could it come back…?

Steve took a deep breath, inhaling slowly through his mouth. The whole thing was too terrifying and too pointless to keep speculating about. He pushed his thoughts back, suppressing them before he could fixate on them yet again.

Real demon or not, it seemed it was gone. Danny was back. Nothing else really mattered.

He glanced again at Danny. "You good?" the question came out involuntarily. He'd asked it  _a lot_ , he knew. Fortunately Danny was being uncharacteristically patient.

Danny nodded, watching his daughter. "Still good, Steven. I'll tell you something, though, I am so done with archaeology."

Steve shook his head, smiling. "Can't blame the archaeology, Danny. You were enjoying yourself before it all went to crap. Remember?"

Danny didn't reply. He gazed off into the distance, his face suddenly blank.

"Danny? What's on your mind?" Steve asked, after letting a few long seconds go by. He tried to sound casual but didn't quite pull it off, his still ever-present concern showing through.

Steve almost held his breath, waiting to see which way the Williams mental rollercoaster was going to go.

Danny shook his head and looked down at his hands. "Nothing. Just, thank you. For everything. You did so much…."

Steve reached over and put a hand on his arm. He squeezed it gently. "Danny stop. You'd have done the same for me. Partners, right."

Danny snorted softly and smiled. He looked over at Steve, met his eyes. His smile dropped and his gaze became intense. In that moment, their eyes conveyed a thousand silent messages. Because they had _both_ been through hell. A hell they would never discuss with family, with friends. It was theirs to keep safe. And it still haunted them, they had a long way to go before they felt  _right..._ but they were together in that. They would help each other through it. As always, they had each other's backs.

Danny smiled softly. "Yeah. Partners." He looked away again, gaze returning to his precious daughter.

Steve patted his arm then sat back.

A broad smile came to Danny's face after a moment. "You know, I think Professor Roy had kind of a thing for me."

Steve barked out a laugh. "Had a thing for you? Danny, she told me she wanted to bite your ass!"

Danny's eyebrows shot up and his smile broadened to downright cheesy. "Seriously?"

Steve turned round to face him again, his expression earnest. "Yeah, and you realise that's an image I'm gonna be stuck with till the day I die thank you very much."

Danny's cheesy smile grew even wider. "You're gonna be thinking about my ass till the day you die? I had no idea you felt like that, Steven."

Steve looked at him incredulously. "Not funny, Daniel."

Danny flapped a dismissive hand at him, smiling smugly. "What can I say, my friend, I'm a babe magnet. If you ever want any tips, you know where to come."

Steve's jaw dropped. "You have to be kidding me! 90% of the time you have the sex life of a monk!"

Danny's face fell. "At least I'm not too constipated to call my girlfriend 'my girlfriend'. When I have one." He snapped.

"That's ridiculous!" said Steve, indignantly. "She  _wasn't_  my girlfriend. We had an arrangement."

"Oh come on! What, like an arrangement that you'd see each other and no one else? Like she was your  _girlfriend_? You even  _lived_ together. Well, until she saw sense and abandoned you in favour of life in a wartorn country, of course." Danny was almost shouting, pointed finger stabbing the air aggressively to emphasise his irritation.

Steve glared at him. "Shut up, Daniel."

Danny glared right back. "Great comeback, Steven."

They stared each other down for long seconds, then broke at the same moment, both grinning helplessly.

Steve bent down and picked up two beers from the cooler at his feet, passing one to Danny. They leant towards each other and clinked bottles, then sat back to watch as Gracie shrieked with laughter in the waves.

"You know there's one thing I would still like to know." said Steve, with a soft sigh.

"Oh yeah?" Danny's tone was cautious.

"What happened to that boy. What happened to Blue Eyes. We owe him…everything really."

Danny nodded in agreement, then shrugged. "I guess we'll never know."

…

The youth with the bright blue eyes stood, bloody and battle-weary but triumphant, still sporting the tunic denoting leadership that had belonged to his father before him. He looked at the strange weapon in his hand that had held the power of the Gods. Its power had gone now, he didn't know why. The thunder that had spewed from it had made the usurpers scatter in terror. Some fell and never rose again. It only served to confirm his belief that the strangers should have been worshipped, not held up for sacrifice.

He scanned the area around the bushes, looking for anything, any sign of them. He saw only the cube. He stared at it in wonder.

Plucking up courage, he reached for it and picked it up. It felt warm. He fingered the carefully incised symbols he had seen the strangers touch and he wondered. He remembered the strange words the tall one had recited.

It was a special thing. Magical. He knew he should place it on the altar with the other special things.

But he looked out to sea, to the unknown world beyond, and he wondered. He wondered where the beardless man with the hard, shining image of the sun, of Tana, in his pocket had come from.

From the Gods himself, that's what he believed. That's why he had tried to protect them once his courage had finally come to the fore, even though few wanted to follow him. For all he held rank and was permitted to lead the ceremonies, he was young. His opinion had not swayed the elders even  _after_  his father's death.

His father had believed the man should be offered up on the Solstice as a rich, worthy sacrifice once he had been submitted to the cleansing rituals- the isolation from corruption in the hills, the opening of his mind with the ha-lu drink, the invocation of the Demon God to carry him to the other side.

He disagreed. To sacrifice those sent  _by_  Tana  _to_  Tana- surely it would have been an insult to the Gods themselves. He was  _certain_ his father's death at the hands of the very man he meant to offer up was proof that his belief was truth.

He thought of the girl who had arrived before the others, who was to be offered up as all strangers who dared show their faces had been offered up before her. She had held no sign of the God, but she arrived the same way as the others- the flash of light on the hill delivering a sleeping human to them. And the others had grieved for her.

Perhaps Tana would punish them for her death, destroy their crops and leave their women sterile and dry. But she had landed badly when she had arrived, her head striking the rocks. She had never awoken, had faded away quietly tied to the post.

Perhaps that alone would save them from Tana's wrath.

He looked at the cube- the portal to another world- and he wondered just how brave he might really be.

THE END….?

**If you've made it this far, thank you for reading!**


End file.
